As for a doctor--that would
be sinful waste, and besides, what use were they except to tell you what
you knew? So she was terribly vexed when Augustine found her in a faint
one morning, and she found Augustine in tears, with her hair all over
her face. She rated the girl soundly, but feebly, for making such a fuss
over "a little thing like that," and with extremely trembling fingers
pushed the brown hair back and told her to wash her face, while the
parrot said reflectively: "Scratch a poll--Hullo!" The girl who had seen
her own grandmother die not long before, and remembered how "_fatiguee_"
she had been during her last days, was really frightened. Coming back
after she had washed her face, she found her mistress writing on a
number of little envelopes the same words: "_En bonne Amitie._" She
looked up at the girl standing so ominously idle, and said:

"Take this hundred-franc note, Augustine, and go and get it changed into
single francs--the ironmonger will do it if you say it's for me. I am
going to take a rest. I sha'n't buy anything for the bag for a whole
week. I shall just take francs instead."

"Oh, _Madame!_ You must not go out: _vous etes trop fatiguee_."

"Nonsense! How do you suppose our dear little Queen in England would get
on with all she has to do, if she were to give in like that? We must
none of us give up in these days. Help me to put on my things; I am
going to church, and then I shall take a long rest before we go to the
hospital."

"Oh, _Madame!_ Must you go to church? It is not your kind of church. You
do not pray there, do you?"

"Of course I pray there. I am very fond of the dear old church. God is
in every church, Augustine; you ought to know that at your age."

"But _Madame_ has her own religion?"

"Now, don't be silly. What does that matter? Help me into my cloth
coat--not the fur--it's too heavy--and then go and get that money
changed."

"But _Madame_ should see a doctor. If _Madame_ faints again I shall die
with fright. _Madame_ has no colour--but no colour at all; it must be
that there is something wrong."

_Madame_ rose, and taking the girl's ear between thumb and finger
pinched it gently.

"You are a very silly girl. What would our poor soldiers do if all the
nurses were like you?"

Reaching the church she sat down gladly, turning her face up towards her
favourite picture, a Virgin standing with her Baby in her arms. It was
only faintly coloured now; but there were those w