one
something?"

"Perhaps," she admitted, "but I had no friends here and it was hard
enough to get my salary, anyway. I could have gone with Mrs. Bradley
if I had been free. As it was, I sent them another American nurse I
knew of in London, who was glad to go back."

"Why didn't you send her to me and go yourself?" I questioned
curiously, "if you want to go so much?"

She looked at me in sincere surprise.

"Why, I had already accepted your case, Mr. Jerrolds," she said.

Alas, Harriet! Why, why were you not teaching your simple code of
honour to some sturdy, kilted Harry?

There seemed to be nothing more to be got from Miss Buxton, and we
began to discuss the best winter climate for me, for I understood
perfectly that for more years than the doctor cared to impress upon me
just now I must avoid damp and chill. We discussed Nassau, Bermuda,
Florida, and I mentioned North Carolina. Then Harriet Buxton opened
her lips and spoke, and in a few amazed moments it became clear to me
that I was in the presence of a fanatic.

For she had been in North Carolina, and this State that for me had
spelled only a remarkably curative air and a deplorably illiterate
population represented the hope of this woman's life, the ambition of
her days and nights, the Macedonia that cried continually in her ears,
"Come over and help us!"

For a year she had lived there in the western mountains, giving her
duty's worth of hours to a wealthy patient, bargaining for so much
free time to devote to that strange, pathetic race of pure-blooded
mountaineers, tall, serious, shy Anglo-Saxons, our veritable elder
brothers, ignorant appallingly, superstitious incredibly, grateful and
generous to a degree. As she talked, rapidly now, with flushing cheeks
and kindling eyes, she brought vividly before me these pale and
patient people, welcoming her with eager hands, hanging on her
wonderful skill, listening like chidden children to her horrified
insistence upon long-forgotten decencies and sanitary measures never
guessed. As my questions grew her confidence grew with them, and at
last she went quickly to her room to return with a thick, black book,
which she thrust into my hands.

"It's my diary," she explained. "If you are really interested you may
read it. Oh Mr. Jerrolds, to think of the money that goes to Africa
and India and slums full of Syrians and Russian Jews, when these
Americans--our real kin, you know!--are putting an axe under the bed,