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