“But, my daughter, I will tell you what you may do, if you feel like devoting yourself. We will put George in an asylum, and educate him, and by-and-by we will find his place for him; and you can go into a hospital as nurse.”
Her face brightens.
“You may not be a real sister; but a good hospital nurse, braving all contagion, and discomfort, and fatigue, is the next thing to one; and you may fashion your garb plainly, and shun the world’s comforts and pleasures very effectually in such a calling.”
“I will, father! Oh, I will!” she says with warmth, for this is her true vocation. “And then I may not have to part from George entirely, which, after all, would wound me here.” She lays her hand upon her heart as she speaks. “He is the only tie that is left me now.”
So Agnes Rodney watches beside the sick and dying in a hospital. Dressed in a plain brown gown, with her hair drawn under a simple white cap, she looks almost a real “sister,” and many of her Protestant patients think her such. She is happier now than ever since her girlhood. She is doing her Saviour’s work and that which she has always loved—ministering to the sick. No other nurse throws into her work such tender, loving care, such sympathy for the homeless and friendless. The doctors rely upon her skill; the patients love her for her gentle ministrations.
“And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.”
It is some five years from the time when Agnes Rodney commenced this life, that a young man, indeed scarcely more than a youth, for he cannot be more than nineteen, is hurt by a fall from a scaffold, and brought into the hospital. He is a carpenter, and has been at work on an adjoining building. To care for him, Mrs. Rodney is sent. The youth is unconscious at first, and under the surgeon’s hands. She does not learn his name at once, and it seems as if no one knows it. His fellow-workmen have withdrawn for the time, but will return to-morrow.
While Mrs. Rodney is disposing of this youth, washing and removing superfluous clothing, a pocket-book falls from his pockets, opening, and scattering its contents. She gathers these up, and is returning them, when her eye falls on a little picture which makes her start and gaze curiously at the youth on the bed before her. This picture is of a woman much younger than herself, and fairer, but it is her own likeness, nevertheless, taken many years ago. The face has a sweet girlish look, and soft, dark ringlets hang about the white throat. Her own hair is now more gray than dark, and stern lines are traced about the eyes and mouth; yet something of the same expression characterizes the face of the picture and the face of the hospital nurse. How many changes have come in her life since the sun portrayed that girlish face! How well she remembers sitting for it years ago! She gazes at it now, and criticises it, as if it were that of another person—never of herself. So completely changed does she seem to herself that no feeling has she now in common with the girl in the picture. And yet she knows it so well. Who is this youth who carries it about him? Is it for a chance admiration of it? She knows this may be, for it is the picture of a very pretty girl of about his own age. She almost fears to allow herself to believe who he may be as she scans his face closely. He moans and opens his eyes, turning to her, saying: