e shrank with a feeling
amounting almost to terror from a dark, quiet room, and the position
of nurse. Her base of operations, according to her own arrangements,
had been the light, airy kitchen, where she felt herself needed at
this very moment. But one can think of several things in a quarter
of a minute. Ester had very lately taken up the habit of securing one
Bible verse as part of her armor to go with her through the day. On
this particular morning the verse was: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might." Now if her hands had found work waiting for
her down this first flight of stairs instead of down two, as she had
planned, what was that to her? Ester turned and went swiftly to
the sick room, dispatched the almost frantic wife according to the
doctor's peremptory orders, gave the mixture as directed, waited
patiently for the doctor's return, only to hear herself installed as
head nurse for the day; given just time enough to take a very hurried
second table meal with Sadie, listen to her half pitiful, half comic
complainings, and learn that her mother was down with sick headache.

So it was that this first day at home drew toward its closing; and not
one single thing that Ester had planned to do, and do so well, had she
been able to accomplish. It had been very hard to sit patiently there
and watch the low breathings of that almost motionless man on the bed
before her, to rouse him at set intervals sufficiently to pour some
mixture down his unwilling lips, to fan him occasionally, and that
was all. It had been hard, but Ester had not chafed under it; she had
recognized the necessity--no nurse to be found, her mother sick, and
the young, frightened, as well as worn-out wife, not to be trusted.
Clearly she was at the post of duty. So as the red sun peeped in a
good-night from a little corner of the closed curtain, it found Ester
not angry, but _very_ sad. _Such_ a weary day! And this man on the
bed was dying; both doctors had _looked_ that at each other at least
a dozen times that day. How her life of late was being mixed up with
death. She had just passed through one sharp lesson, and here at the
threshold awaited another. Different from that last though--oh, _very_
different--and herein lay some of the sadness. Mr. Foster had said
"every thing was ready for the long journey, even should there be no
return." Then she went back for a minute to the look of glory on that
marble face, and heard again tha