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It was the last thought in her mind before she fainted on the broad marble staircase with a tiny baby in her arms, and fell to the botto the nurse back to consciousness, and still longer to put heart into her again
"She isn't fit for the work!" she heard the biting tongue of the head nurse declare "She's too frail and pretty and--emotional She feels everybody's troubles Now I never let a case worry ly and said in his heart: "Any one would know that"
But Hazel, listening, wasand was adjudged unworthy!
The nextthere came a brief, blunt note from Amelia Ellen: "Dear Mis Raclift Ef yore a trainurse why don't yo cu fer heer an she's wearyin to see yo She as gotta hev one, a trainurse I mean Yors respectfooly Amelia Ellen Stout"
After an intervieith the house doctor and another with her old family physician, Hazel packed up her unifor of her arrival, after the gentle invalid had been prepared for sleep and left in the quiet and dark, that Amelia Ellen told the story: "She ain't ben the same since John went back Seeain while she was livin' She tole s she wanted done after she was gone, and she's ben gettin' ready to leave this earth ever since Not that she's gloomy, oh, my senses no! She's jes' as interested as can be in her flowers, and in folks, an' the church, but she don't want to try to do so s, and she has them weak, fainty spells oftener, an'hours with jest her Bible open now, but land, she don't need to read it! She knows it most by heart--that is the livin' parts, you know She don't seeazine articles now any more I wish t' the land they'd be anuther Gen'l 'Se fer her She jest acted like she was tendin' every blessed one o' theit done my breakfast dishes She'd want me t' fix her up fer the day, an' then set down an' read their doin's 'We kin let things go, you know, 'Meelia Ellen,' she'd say with her sweet little smile, 'just while the h fer work--an' rest too, 'Meelia Ellen,' says she Well, seems like she was just 'tendin' those meetin's herself, same es if she was there She'd take her nap like it was a pill, er somethin', and then be wide awake an' ready fer her afternoon freshenin', an' then she'd watch fer the stage to bring the evenin' paper John, he hed a whole cartload o' papers sent, an' the day he spoke they was so et my bread set I hed to borry a loaf off the inn First time that's ever happened to me either I jest hed to set an' read till my back ached, and my eyes swum I never read so ood bit o' readin' in my time, too, ith nursin' her an' bein' cohter one summer