It was the last thought in her mind before she fainted on the broad marble staircase with a tiny baby in her arms, and fell to the bottom. The baby was uninjured, but it took a long time to bring the nurse back to consciousness, and still longer to put heart into her again.
"She isn't fit for the work!" she heard the biting tongue of the head nurse declare. "She's too frail and pretty and--emotional. She feels everybody's troubles. Now I never let a case worry me in the least!" And the house doctor eyed her knowingly and said in his heart: "Any one would know that."
But Hazel, listening, was more disheartened than ever. Then here, too, she was failing and was adjudged unworthy!
The next morning there came a brief, blunt note from Amelia Ellen: "Dear Mis Raclift Ef yore a trainurse why don't yo cum an' take car o' my Mis Brownleigh She aint long fer heer an she's wearyin to see yo She as gotta hev one, a trainurse I mean Yors respectfooly Amelia Ellen Stout."
After an interview with the house doctor and another with her old family physician, Hazel packed up her uniforms and departed for New Hampshire.
It was the evening of her arrival, after the gentle invalid had been prepared for sleep and left in the quiet and dark, that Amelia Ellen told the story: "She ain't ben the same since John went back. Seems like she sort o' sensed thet he wouldn't come again while she was livin'. She tole me the next day a lot of things she wanted done after she was gone, and she's ben gettin' ready to leave this earth ever since. Not that she's gloomy, oh, my senses no! She's jes' as interested as can be in her flowers, and in folks, an' the church, but she don't want to try to do so many things, and she has them weak, fainty spells oftener, an' more pain in her heart. She sits fer long hours with jest her Bible open now, but land, she don't need to read it! She knows it most by heart--that is the livin' parts, you know. She don't seem to care 'tall fer them magazine articles now any more. I wish t' the land they'd be anuther Gen'l 'Sembly! Thet was the greatest thing fer her. She jest acted like she was tendin' every blessed one o' them meetin's. Why, she couldn't wait fer me t' git done my breakfast dishes. She'd want me t' fix her up fer the day, an' then set down an' read their doin's. 'We kin let things go, you know, 'Meelia Ellen,' she'd say with her sweet little smile, 'just while the meetin's last. Then when it's over they'll be time 'nough fer work--an' rest too, 'Meelia Ellen,' says she. Well, seems like she was just 'tendin' those meetin's herself, same es if she was there. She'd take her nap like it was a pill, er somethin', and then be wide awake an' ready fer her afternoon freshenin', an' then she'd watch fer the stage to bring the evenin' paper. John, he hed a whole cartload o' papers sent, an' the day he spoke they was so many I jes' couldn't get my bread set. I hed to borry a loaf off the inn. First time that's ever happened to me either. I jest hed to set an' read till my back ached, and my eyes swum. I never read so much in my whole borned days t' oncet; an' I've done a good bit o' readin' in my time, too, what with nursin' her an' bein' companion to a perfessor's invaleed daughter one summer.