s after that she ventured to read to him from the little book, and
to tell of the worship held out under the stars in the desert. It came
to be a habit between them, as the days grew less, that she should read
the little book, and afterwards he would always lie still as if he were
asleep.

It was on the words of the precious psalm that he closed his eyes for
the last time in this world, and it was the psalm that brought comfort
to the daughter's heart when she came back to the empty house after the
funeral.

Her brother was there, it is true, but he was afraid of death, and
wanted to get back to his world again, back to the European trip where
he had left his friends, and especially a gay young countess who had
smiled upon him. He was impatient of death and sorrow. Hazel saw that he
could not comprehend her loneliness, so she bade him go as soon as
decency would allow, and he was not long in obeying her. He had had his
own way all his life, and even death was not to deny him.

The work of the trained nurses who had cared for her father interested
Hazel deeply. She had talked with them about their life and preparation
for it, and when she could no longer stand the great empty house with
only Aunt Maria for company, who had come back just before Mr.
Radcliffe's death, she determined to become a nurse herself.

There was much ado over her decision among her acquaintances, and Aunt
Maria thought it was not quite respectable for her to do so eccentric a
thing and so soon after her father's death. She would have preferred to
have had her run down to Lakewood for a few weeks and then follow her
brother across the water for a year or two of travel; but Hazel was
quite determined, and before January was over she was established in the
hospital, through the influence of their family physician, and
undergoing her first initiation.

It was not easy thus to give up her life of doing exactly as she pleased
when she pleased, and become a servant under orders. Her back often
ached, and her eyes grew heavy with the watching and the ministering,
and she would be almost ready to give over. Then the thought of the man
of the desert gave her new courage and strength. It came to her that she
was partaking with him in the great work of the kingdom, and with this
thought she would rise and go about the strange new work again, until
her interest in the individuals to whom she ministered grew deep, and
she understood in a measure the reason