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glass with water and put them on a stand by the head of the bed. Then--oh, quite professionally--she smoothed out his pillows and straightened the bedclothes, and, talking all the time, and as if quite unconscious of what she was doing, moved about the room, putting things to rights, and saying, in answer to his protest, that perhaps she should lose her reputation as a physician in his eyes by appearing to be a professional nurse. There was a timid knock at the door, and a forlorn little figure, clad in a rumpled calico, with an old shawl over her head, half concealing an eager and pretty face, stood in the doorway, and hesitatingly came in. "Meine Mutter sent me to see how Father Damon is," she explained; "she could not come, because she washes." She had a bunch of flowers in her hand, and encouraged by the greeting of the invalid, she came to the bedside and placed them in his outstretched hand--a faded blossom of scarlet geranium, a bachelor's button, and a sprig of parsley, probably begged of a street dealer as she came along. "Some blooms," she said. "Bless you, my dear," said Father Damon; "they are very pretty." "Dey smells nice," the child exclaimed, her eyes dancing with pleasure at the reception of her gift. She stood staring at him, and then, her eye catching the violets, she added, "Dose is pooty, too." "If you can stay half an hour or so, I should like to step round to the chapel," Father Monies said to the doctor in the front room, taking up his hat. The doctor could stay. The little girl had moved a chair up to the bedside, and sat quite silent, her grimy little hand grasped in the father's. Ruth, saying that she hoped the father wouldn't mind, began to put in order the front room, which the incidents of the night had somewhat disturbed. Father Damon, holding fast by that little hand to the world of poverty to which he had devoted his life, could not refrain from watching her, as she moved about with the quick, noiseless way that a woman has when she is putting things to rights. This was indeed a novel invasion of his life. He was still too weak to reason about it much. How good she was, how womanly! And what a sense of peace and repose she brought into his apartment! The presence of Brother Monies was peaceful also, but hers was somehow different. His eyes had not cared to follow the brother about the room. He knew that she was unselfish, but he had not noticed before that her ways were so
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