n her
soft, wavy hair, and her hands full of flowers. Miss Stella always made a
first appearance at a patient's bedside with flowers. She said they were a
friendly introduction that never failed.

"It's the nurse woman they went for," gasped Captain Jeb, as the new
arrival proceeded to step from boat to wharf with a light grace that
scarcely needed Father Tom's assisting hand. "Well, I'll be tee-totally
jiggered! Who ever saw a nurse woman pretty as that?"

But Dan did not hear. He had dropped nails, hammer, and all present
interest in the recuperation of the "Sary Ann," and was off down the beach
to meet the fair visitor, whose coming he could not understand.

"Danny," she said, holding out her empty hand to him,--"Miss Winnie's
Danny!--I told you I had friends here, Father Rayburn; and this is one
that I expect to find my right-hand man. What a queer, quaint, wonderful
place this Killykinick is! I am so glad you brought me here to help you!"

Help them! Help them! Dan caught the world in breathless amazement. Then
Miss Stella, Polly's Marraine, was the nurse! It seemed altogether
astounding; for sick nurses, in Dan's experience, had always been fat old
ladies who had out-lived all other duties, and appeared only on important
occasions, to gossip in solemn whispers, and to drink unlimited tea. And
now Polly's Marraine was a _nurse_! It was impossible to doubt the fact;
for Father Tom was leading her straight to Mr. Neville's side, Dan
following in dumb bewilderment.

The sick man lay in the old Captain's room, whither, at his own request,
the life-savers had borne him the previous evening. His eyes, deep-sunken
in their sockets, were closed, his features rigid. Poor little Freddy,
tearful and trembling, knelt by Brother Bart, who paused in his murmured
prayers to shake his head hopelessly at the newcomer's approach.

"I'm glad ye're here before he goes entirely, Father. It's time, I think,
for the last blessing. I am afraid he can neither hear nor see."

But Miss Stella had stepped forward, put her soft hand on the patient's
pulse; and then, with a quick whisper to Father Tom, she had dropped her
flowers, opened the little wrist-bag they had concealed, and proceeded to
"do things,"--just what sort of things Dan did not know. He could only see
the soft hands moving swiftly, deftly; baring the patient's arm to the
shoulder and flashing something sharp and shining into the pale flesh;
holding the fluttering pulse un