ed
to fetch a large new bound red book, lying on the table by the window,
and she fetches five small old boarded brown books lying on the shelf by
the fire. And this, though she has "put that room to rights" every day
for a month perhaps, and must have observed the books every day, lying
in the same places, for a month, if she had any observation.

Habitual observation is the more necessary, when any sudden call arises.
If "Fanny" had observed "the bottle of salvolatile" in "the aunt's
room," every day she was there, she would more probably have found it
when it was suddenly wanted.

There are two causes for these mistakes of inadvertence. 1. A want of
ready attention; only a part of the request is heard at all. 2. A want
of the habit of observation.

To a nurse I would add, take care that you always put the same things in
the same places; you don't know how suddenly you may be called on some
day to find something, and may not be able to remember in your haste
where you yourself had put it, if your memory is not in the habit of
seeing the thing there always.

[5]
[Sidenote: Approach of death, paleness by no means an invariable
effect, as we find in novels.]

It falls to few ever to have had the opportunity of observing the
different aspects which the human face puts on at the sudden approach of
certain forms of death by violence; and as it is a knowledge of little
use, I only mention it here as being the most startling example of what
I mean. In the nervous temperament the face becomes pale (this is the
only _recognised_ effect); in the sanguine temperament purple; in the
bilious yellow, or every manner of colour in patches. Now, it is
generally supposed that paleness is the one indication of almost any
violent change in the human being, whether from terror, disease, or
anything else. There can be no more false observation. Granted, it is
the one recognised livery, as I have said--_de rigueur_ in novels, but
nowhere else.

[6]
I have known two cases, the one of a man who intentionally and
repeatedly displaced a dislocation, and was kept and petted by all the
surgeons; the other of one who was pronounced to have nothing the matter
with him, there being no organic change perceptible, but who died within
the week. In both these cases, it was the nurse who, by accurately
pointing out what she had accurately observed, to the doctors, saved the
one case from persevering in a fraud, the other from being discharged
wh