spense
awaiting his report.

At last he came back to us with gentle reassuring smile.

"There is no immediate danger," he said, and the tone in which he spoke
was even more comforting than his words. "As soon as she recovers from
her terror she will not suffer"--then he added gravely, "A minute blood
vessel has ruptured in her brain, and a small clot has formed there. If
this is absorbed, as I think it will be, she will recover. Nothing can
be done for her. No medicine can reach her. It is just a question of
rest and quiet." Then to me he added something which stung like a
poisoned dart. "She should have been relieved from severe household
labor years ago."

My heart filled with bitterness and rebellion, bitterness against the
pioneering madness which had scattered our family, and rebellion toward
my father who had kept my mother always on the border, working like a
slave long after the time when she should have been taking her ease.
Above all, I resented my own failure, my own inability to help in the
case. Here was I, established in a distant city, with success just
opening her doors to me, and yet still so much the struggler that my
will to aid was futile for lack of means.

Sleep was difficult that night, and for days thereafter my mind was rent
with a continual and ineffectual attempt to reach a solution of my
problem, which was indeed typical of ambitious young America everywhere.
"Shall I give up my career at this point? How can I best serve my
mother?" These were my questions and I could not answer either of them.

At the end of a week the sufferer was able to sit up, and soon recovered
a large part of her native cheerfulness although it was evident to me
that she would never again be the woman of the ready hand. Her days of
labor were over.

Her magnificent voice was now weak and uncertain. Her speech painfully
hesitant. She who had been so strong, so brave, was now both easily
frightened and readily confused. She who had once walked with the grace
and power of an athlete was now in terror of an up-rolled rug upon the
floor. Every time I looked at her my throat ached with remorseful pain.
Every plan I made included a vow to make her happy if I could. My
success now meant only service to her. In no other way could I justify
my career.

Dr. Cross though naturally eager to return to the comfort of his own
home stayed on until his patient had regained her poise. "The clot seems
in process of being taken up