She was, by profession, a trained nurse, having, many years previous, served her time in the Massachusetts General Hospital, of Boston, after which her experience was wide and varied, winning for herself encomiums from both surgeons and physicians, and the unbounded confidence of those who were fortunate enough to secure her services in the sick-room.
She had her own home in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where she lived with her one trusty maid in a quiet, restful way, when her services were not in demand elsewhere.
It was into this peaceful home that her only sister had come, about a month previous, to remain until the return of her husband, who had been called abroad upon urgent business.
Adam Brewster was a wealthy banker of New York City.
He was several years older than sweet Alice Porter, whom he had met and fallen in love with some two years previous, and who had been his idolized wife for little more than twelve months.
It had been a great trial that he could not take his dear one to Europe with him; but her physician utterly prohibited such a trip for the young wife, and thus she had gone to spend the interval of her husband’s absence with her sister, in the home of her childhood, and where a tiny little girl was born into the world, only to breathe faintly for a few moments, and them slip away into the great unknown.
For hours after the birth and death of her little one, Alice Brewster had lain in a state of unconsciousness, which caused the heart of her faithful nurse and sister to quake with fear.
But, when consciousness returned, and the youthful mother called for her little one, and she was obliged to tell her that she was childless, her heart almost failed her again, in view of the bitter disappointment and violent sorrow which once more threatened to snap the slender thread of life.
She could only temporarily quell these outbursts of grief by administering powerful narcotics to induce sleep and oblivion, with the hope that calmness and resignation would come with returning strength.