woman opened her eyes and said: "Anythink gorn
wrong? Wot's up? Is it the work'us?"
It was a clear case of destitution and collapse. John Storm began to feed
the old creature with the chicken and milk sent up for his own lunch.
Some time in the afternoon he heard the voice and step of the vicar in
the room below. Going down to the study, he was about to knock; but the
voice continued in varying tones, now loud, now low. During a pause he
rapped, and then, with noticeable irritation, the voice cried, "Come in!"
He found the vicar, with a manuscript in hand, rehearsing his Sunday's
sermon. It was a shock to John, but it helped him to understand what his
uncle had said about the canon's Pentecost.
The canon's brow was clouded. "Ah, is it you? I was sorry to see you
getting out of a third-class carriage to-day, Mr. Storm."
John answered that it was the poor man's class, and therefore, he
thought, it ought to be his.
"You do yourself an injustice, Mr. Storm. Besides, to tell you the truth,
I don't choose that my assistant clergy----"
John looked ashamed. "If that is your view, sir," he said, "I don't know
what you'll say to what I've been doing since."
"I've heard of it, and I confess I'm not pleased. Whatever your old
_protegee_ may be, my house is no place for her. I help to maintain
charitable institutions for such cases, and I will ask you to lose no
time in having her removed to the hospital."
John was crushed. "Very well, sir, if that is your wish; only I thought
you said my rooms----Besides, the poor old thing fills her place as well
as Queen Victoria, and perhaps the angels are watching the one as much as
the other."
Next day John Storm called to see the old woman at Martha's Vineyard, and
he saw the matron, the house doctor, and a staff nurse as well. His
adventure was known to everybody at the hospital. Once or twice he caught
looks of amused compassion, and heard a twitter of laughter. As he stood
by the bed, the old woman muttered: "I knoo ez it wuzn't the work'us, my
dear. He spoke to me friendly and squeedged my 'and."
Coming through the wards he had looked for a face he could not see; but
just then he was aware of a young woman, in the print dress and white
apron of a nurse, standing in silence at the bed-head. It was Glory, and
her eyes were wet with tears.
"You mustn't do such things," she said hoarsely; "I can't bear it," and
she stamped her foot. "Don't you see that these people---
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