any positions it is
necessary to prepare by long and expensive training. We wanted a lady
secretary for one of the societies in which I am interested, and we had
hundreds of applicants who were expert typists and stenographers, and
had all sorts of diplomas to show, but you have nothing of the kind."

"No, nor a penny to spend on training. I must be taken as I am, or not
at all. Don't discourage me, Eleanor, please. Mollie runs the cold tap
persistently at home, and I really need appreciation. There must be
_something_ that I can do, if I set my wits to work. I am not going to
be a nurse, Dr Maclure, so don't think that I am leading up to a
request that you should get me into a hospital. I don't like sick
people unless they are my very own, and it would be almost as dull to be
shut up in a hospital as to remain at home."

Miss Maclure looked a trifle shocked at this candid confession, but her
brother laughed, and said approvingly--

"That's right! I admire your honesty. We have far too many nurses who
take up the work without any real fitness, and I should be sorry to see
you added to the number. Well, let me see! ... After hospital nursing,
the next most popular resort is to turn author and write a novel. Have
you any leaning in that direction?"

He looked across at Ruth with a humorous twitching of his clean-shaven
lips. Once again she felt conscious that the Maclures looked upon her
as a pretty child, to be petted and humoured rather than a serious woman
of the world, and once again the knowledge brought with it a feeling of
rest and comfort.

She crinkled her brows and smiled back at the doctor, answering
frankly--

"Oh yes, plenty of leanings! I should love to write, and Mollie and I
are always `imagining' to make life more lively and exciting; but, when
it comes to sitting down with a pen in my hand, my thoughts seem to take
wing and fly away, and the words won't come. They are all stiff and
formal, and won't express what I want. Mollie gets on better, for she
writes as she talks, so it's natural at least. She wrote quite a long
story once, and read it aloud to me as she went on, but it was never
finished, and I don't think for a moment that any paper would have
looked at it. The people were all lords and dukes and millionaires, and
we don't know even a knight. I expect it was full of mistakes."

Dr Maclure smiled and rose from his seat.

"Well, I have some letters to write, so I will l