Very soon, Ida found herself taking an interest in everything that went
on, in the noiseless movements of the nurses, in the arrival of a new
case, in the visit of the doctors and the chaplain, and the friends of
the other patients. Let the pessimists say what they may, there is a
lot of good in human nature; and it comes out quite startlingly in the
ward of a hospital. Ida was amazed at the care and attention, the
patience and the devotion which were lavished on herself and her
fellow-sufferers; a devotion which no money can buy, and which could
not have been exceeded if they had one and all been princesses of the
blood royal.
One instance of this whole-souled devotion and unstinting charity
occurred on the third day and brought the tears to her eyes, not only
then but whenever she thought of it in the after years. A tiny mite of
a baby, only a few weeks old was brought into the ward and laid in a
cot not very far from Ida's bed. The nurses and the doctors crowded
round it with eager attention. It was watched day and night; if it
cried, at the first note of the feeble wail, a couple of nurses flew to
the cot, and, if necessary, a famous physician was telephoned for: and
came promptly and cheerfully. The whole ward was wrapped up in the tiny
mite, and Ida leant on her elbow and craned forward to get a glimpse of
it; and felt towards it as she would have felt if it had been a little
sick or wounded lamb in Herondale.
"What is the matter with it, poor little thing?" she asked the sister.
"The spine," replied the sister, bending tenderly over the cot and
taking the emaciated little paw in her comforting, ministering hand.
"Will it get well?" asked Ida, quite anxiously.
The sister shook her head.
"Lor' bless me!" said Ida's neighbour, pityingly. "It 'ud be almost
better if the pore little thing died!"
The sister looked up with mild surprise.
"Oh, yes; it can't live longer than three weeks," she said, as sadly as
if she had not seen a score of similar cases.
Ida lay down, her eyes filled with tears, her heart filled with awe and
wonder. Perhaps for the first time in her life she understood what
charity meant. Here was a waif of the slums, doomed to die in so many
weeks, and yet it was the object of the loving devotion of every nurse
in the ward, with every comfort and luxury which an age of civilisation
could supply, and the recipient of the enthusiastic attention of a
great surgeon whose name was famous throughout the world.