ant she
threw what appeared to Miss Beaver a distasteful glance, ignoring the
nurse entirely although she had not met her previously and must have
known that the strange young woman was the new night nurse.

"Do come to bed, Frank," she urged crossly, placing a proprietary hand
on her husband's coat sleeve. "It won't do you any good to moon around
in here and it might disturb Francis."

Miss Beaver stood by her patient's bed, her clear gray eyes full upon
young Mrs. Wiley. The nurse experienced a kind of disgust, together with
one of those uncomfortable intuitions upon the reliability of which
Doctor Parris was always depending. She knew, all at once, that Mrs.
Wiley was that strange type of modern woman which makes a cult of
personal beauty, taking wifehood lightly and submitting to maternity as
infrequently as possible.

"I suppose you're right, Florry," the father conceded, with a last
solicitous look at the exhausted child. "Miss Beaver...?"

The nurse nodded, her lips a tight red line.

"It would be better for the patient if the room were quiet and
darkened," she said with decision.

* * * * *

When the door had closed behind the pair, Miss Beaver busied herself
making the child more comfortable for the night. She smoothed out the
cool linen sheets, drawing them taut under the wasted little body. She
bathed the hot face with water and alcohol. To all her ministrations the
child submitted in a kind of lethargy, speaking no word, making no sign
that he had noticed a different attendant. When she had quite finished,
he breathed a long sigh of relaxation; his quivering, weak little body
went suddenly limp, and Miss Beaver had a good scare as she bent over
him, trying to bring back that weary and reluctant spirit to its
exhausted mortal domicile.

It was by then nearly half past seven. The child lay supine;
heavy-lidded eyes half opened upon this tormentress who had somehow
succeeded in calling him back into the dimly lighted room from the
shadows of Lethe's alluring banks. Miss Beaver, kneeling beside young
Frank's bed, talked tenderly to him in a soft monotone. She made all
manner of gratuitous promises, if only Frank would try like a good boy
to get well. She told him firmly that he could, if he wanted to. She
made her suggestions with gently persuasive voice, coloring all she said
with the warmth of a heart peculiarly open to the unknown needs of the
listless child. To those