, a worm, or any other meek and lowly article, whose mission
it is to be put down and walked upon; nurses being considered as mere
servants, receiving the lowest pay, and, it's my private opinion, doing
the hardest work of any part of the army, except the mules. Great,
therefore, was my surprise, when I found myself treated with the utmost
courtesy and kindness. Very soon my carefully prepared meekness was
laid upon the shelf; and, going from one extreme to the other, I more
than once expressed a difference of opinion regarding sundry messes it
was my painful duty to administer.

As eight of us nurses chanced to be off duty at once, we had an
excellent opportunity of trying the virtues of these gentlemen; and I
am bound to say they stood the test admirably, as far as my personal
observation went. Dr. O.'s stethoscope was unremitting in its
attentions; Dr. S. brought his buttons into my room twice a day, with
the regularity of a medical clock; while Dr. Z. filled my table with
neat little bottles, which I never emptied, prescribed Browning,
bedewed me with Cologne, and kept my fire going, as if, like the
candles in St. Peter's, it must never be permitted to die out. Waking,
one cold night, with the certainty that my last spark had pined away
and died, and consequently hours of coughing were in store for me, I
was amazed to see a ruddy light dancing on the wall, a jolly blaze
roaring up the chimney, and, down upon his knees before it, Dr. Z.,
whittling shavings. I ought to have risen up and thanked him on the
spot; but, knowing that he was one of those who like to do good by
stealth, I only peeped at him as if he were a friendly ghost; till,
having made things as cozy as the most motherly of nurses could have
done, he crept away, leaving me to feel, as somebody says, "as if
angels were a watching of me in my sleep;" though that species of wild
fowl do not usually descend in broadcloth and glasses. I afterwards
discovered that he split the wood himself on that cool January
midnight, and went about making or mending fires for the poor old
ladies in their dismal dens; thus causing himself to be felt--a bright
and shining light in more ways than one. I never thanked him as I
ought; therefore, I publicly make a note of it, and further aggravate
that modest M.D. by saying that if this was not being the best of
doctors and the gentlest of gentlemen, I shall be happy to see any
improvement upon it.

To such as wish to know wher