A Girl in Ten Thousand | Page 5

face; her eyes were large and gray, her mouth sweet. She had a way of taking possession of those she spoke to, and she had not been two minutes in the shabby little sitting-room before Dr. and Mrs. Staunton were looking at her earnestly and listening to her words with respect.
Dorothy sat near Mrs. Staunton.
"I am very glad to know you," she said, after a pause. "Effie has talked to me over and over again about you."
"May I ask how long you have known Effie?" interrupted Dr. Staunton.
"Well, exactly a week," replied Miss Fraser. "I have been home a week, and I am going to stay another week. I met Effie the night I came home, and---- But one can cultivate a friendship in a week; don't you think so, Dr. Staunton?"
"Perhaps, perhaps," said the doctor in a dubious voice. "I am slow in making friends myself. It is the old-fashioned way of country folk."
"Oh, pray don't speak of yourself as old-fashioned, Dr. Staunton; and don't run down country folk, I see so many of them at the hospital. For my part, I think they are worth twenty of those poor London people, who are half starved in body, and have only learned the wicked side of life."
"Poor creatures!" said Mrs. Staunton. "I wish you would tell us something about the hospital, my dear. It is vastly entertaining to hear all about sick people."
"No; now pardon me," said the doctor; "you will do nothing of the kind, Miss Fraser. There are not many sick folk about here, but what few there are I have got to look after, and my thoughts are bothered enough about them and their sicknesses, so I would rather, if you please, turn our conversation to people who are not ill. The wife here is a bit nervous, too, and she is never the better for hearing people talk about what they call 'bad cases.' I think it is the worst thing in the world for people to keep talking of their maladies, or even about other people's maladies. My motto is this, 'When you are ill, try and see how soon you can get well again, and when you are well, try to keep so. Never think of illness at all.'"
Miss Fraser looked fully at the doctor while he was talking. A slight frown came between her eyebrows. Effie's bright dark eyes were fixed on her friend.
"Illness interests me, of course," Dorothy said, after a pause; "but I won't talk of it. There are many other things, as you say, just as vital."
"Well, at any rate," said Mrs. Staunton, "Miss Fraser can tell us how she came to be a nurse----"
"For my part," interrupted Dr. Staunton, "I think it is a great pity that girls like you, Miss Fraser, should take up that sort of life. Lady girls are not suited to it; for one who is fitted for the life, there are fifty who are not. If you could only guess how doctors hate to see lady nurses in possession of a case. She is a fine lady through it all; she thinks she is not, but she is. Do you suppose she will wash up the cups and plates and spoons as they ought to be washed and kept in a sick person's room? and do you fancy she will clean out the grate, and go down on her knees to wash the floor? Your fine lady nurse won't. There is a case of infection, for instance,--measles or scarlet fever,--and the nurse comes down from London, and she is supposed to take possession; but one of the servants of the house has to go in to clean and dust and arrange, or the sickroom is not dusted or cleaned at all. That is your lady nurse; and I say she is not suited to the work."
Miss Fraser turned pale while the doctor was speaking.
"You must admit," she said, when he stopped and looked at her,--"you must admit, Dr. Staunton, that every lady nurse is not like that. If you have an infection case in your practice, send for me. I think I can prove to you that there are some ladies who are too truly women to think anything menial or beneath them." She colored as she spoke, and lowered her eyes.
The conversation drifted into other channels. After a time Dorothy got up and went away; and Effie, yawning slightly, went up to her room to go to bed. She slept in a little room next to the nursery. Instead of undressing at once, as was her wont, she went and stood by the window, threw it open, and looked out. "What would father say if he knew my thoughts?" she said to herself. "He despises ladies who are nurses; he thinks it