lth; I am never ill, never, never. I will do all you say
to me. Let me stay, dear monsieur."

"But your husband, your friends--" he said.

"I have no friends," I interrupted, "and my husband does not love me. If
I have the fever, and die--good! very good! I am not wicked; I am a
Christian, I hope. Only let me stay with Minima, and do all I can in the
hospital."

He stood looking at me scrutinizingly, trying to read, I fancied, if
there were any sign of wickedness in my face. I felt it flush, but I
would not let my eyes sink before his. I think he saw in them, in my
steadfast, tearful eyes, that I might be unfortunate, but that I was not
wicked. A pleasant gleam came across his features.

"Be content, my child," he said, "you shall stay with us."

I felt a sudden sense of contentment take possession of me; for here was
work for me to do, as well as a refuge. Neither should I be compelled to
leave Minima. I wrapped her up warmly in the blankets, and Monsieur
Laurentie lifted her carefully and tenderly from the low bed. He told me
to accompany him, and we crossed the court, and entered the house by the
door I had seen the night before. A staircase of red quarries led up to
the second story, and the first door we came to was a long, low room,
with a quarried floor, which had been turned into a hastily-fitted-up
fever-ward for women and children. There were already nine beds in it, of
different sizes, brought with the patients who now occupied them. But
one of these was empty.

I learned afterward that the girl to whom the bed belonged had died the
day before, during the cure's absence, and was going to be buried that
morning, in a cemetery lying in a field on the side of the valley.
Mademoiselle Therese was making up the bed with homespun linen, scented
with rosemary and lavender, and the cure laid Minima down upon it with
all the skill of a woman. In this home-like ward I took up my work as
nurse.

It was work that seemed to come naturally to me, as if I had a special
gift for it. I remembered how some of the older shepherds on the station
at home used to praise my mother's skill as a nurse. I felt as if I knew
by instinct the wants of my little patients, when they could not put
them into coherent words for themselves. They were mostly children, or
quite young girls; for the older people who were stricken by the fever
generally clung to their own homes, and the cure visited them there with
the regularity of a physi