Mrs. Rolleston was now more hopeful, and, far from opposing Cecil's wishes, cheerfully forwarded them. She looked upon hers as so cruelly exceptional a lot, that any absorbing occupation capable of distracting her mind was only too welcome. And so when
Spring
Came forth, her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
Cecil, turning "from all she brought," was far on her way to the East, and wishing, as she assumed the black serge hospital dress, that she could as easily transform her internal consciousness as her outward identity.
Hers was not a nature to do anything by halves, and every faculty of mind and body became absorbed in these new duties. The patient who fell into Cecil's hands had little to complain of. She struggled for his life when even the shadow of death had fallen on him, and sometimes, by arduous exertions and devoted nursing, saved one in whom the vital flame had wasted almost to the socket. And then a nearly divine content came to her as she imagined she might have spared some distant heart the pangs that had almost broken her own.
But to follow her through the daily routine of duties, often painful, often touching, would be too long for the present history, so we pass abruptly to one event, a necessary link in it.
Cecil was attending a fever case, and looking anxiously for the doctor, as she fancied her patient was sinking. He was a young man, and had been more or less unconscious ever since he was brought in.
The surgeon came, and shook his head as he felt the feeble pulse.
"Is there no hope?" asked Cecil, sorrowfully.
"Scarcely any. Give him this stimulant whenever you can get him to swallow it; but there seems no reserve of strength." And he passed on to others.
She lost no time in attending to his directions, and a large pair of melancholy brown eyes opened on her. They watched her about persistently, and seeing their gaze, though languid, was rational, she asked "if there was anything she could do for him."