ng comfort. The first necessity in the right care for the
sick is to be quiet and cheerful. The next is to aim, without
disturbing the invalid, to get as true an idea as possible of the
condition necessary to help the patient to get well. The third is to
bring about those conditions with the least possible amount of friction.

Find out what the invalid likes and how she likes it by observation and
not by questions.

Sometimes, of course, a question must be asked. If we receive a
snappish answer, let us not resent it, but blame the illness and be
grateful if, along with the snappishness, we find out what suits our
patient best.

If we see her increasing her pain by contracting and giving all her
attention to complaining, we cannot help her by telling her that that
sort of thing is not going to make her well. But we can soothe her in a
way that will enable her to see it for herself.

Often the right suggestion, no matter how good it is, will only annoy
the patient and send her farther on in the wrong path; but if given in
some gentle roundabout way, so that she feels that she has discovered
for herself what you have been trying to tell her, it will work wonders
toward her recovery.

If you want to care for the sick in a way that will truly help them
toward recovery, you must observe and study,--study and observe, and
never resent their irritability.

See that they have the right amount of air; that they have the right
nourishment at the right intervals. Let them have things their own way,
and done in their own way so far as is possible without interfering
with what is necessary to their health.

Remember that there are times when it is better to risk deferring
recovery a little rather than force upon an invalid what is not wanted,
especially when it is evident that resistance will be harmful.

Quiet, cheerfulness, light, air, nourishment, orderly surroundings, and
to be let judiciously alone; those are the conditions which the amateur
nurse must further, according to her own judgment and, her knowledge of
the friend she is nursing.

For this purpose she must, as I have said, study and observe, and
observe and study.

I do not mean necessarily to do all this when she is "off duty," but to
so concentrate when she is attending to the wants of her friend that
every moment and every thought will be used to the best gain of the
patient herself, and not toward our ideas of her best gain.

A little careful effort of