cuous to him by its proximity and
easiness of access. If he should yield to the temptation and be caught,
he would run the risk of being lynched.

I have heard it said that many women become nurses, hospital nurses
especially, with a keen eye on matrimony. It is a fact that a good many
nurses marry doctors they have come in contact with, hospital students
they have worked with, and even sometimes patients they have nursed
during a protracted and painful illness. The wounded officer and his
nurse have been the hero and the heroine of many plays and novels; but
very few women undertake to lead a life of seclusion and slavery, of
abnegation and devotion, a life which entails work day and night, and
even danger of contracting infectious disease, with a view to
matrimony.

On the other hand, I dare say that a fair number of women have become
nurses after the sad ending of some love-affair, in order to divert
their thoughts from the death of a beloved sweetheart or the
unfaithfulness of a light-hearted lover.

At all events, if the mother-in-law, the stepmother, the widow, the old
maid, the strong-minded woman, the ruling wife, the woman's-righter,
the woman _this_ and the woman _that_, have supplied themes for the
entertainment and the gaiety of nations, the humourist has invariably
left the nurse alone.

* * * * *

I was just now mentioning the fact that many women became nurses in
order to bestow on their suffering fellow-creatures the love which the
death of a dear lover prevented them from bestowing on a man.

As an illustration, I will give a little story that I extract from my
early reminiscences.

We were fast getting the better of the Communards in 1871, and my men
were warming to the work in grand style, when a piece of burst shell
hit me, and some of the fellows carried me off to the hospital. I
remember being puzzled that there should be relatively no pain in a
wound of that sort; but the pain came soon enough when the fever set
in. The doctor of the Versailles Hospital was a rough specimen, as army
doctors often are--in France, at any rate--and you may fancy that the
groans and moans of the other wounded were not soothing either. One day
the doctor told me I should soon be able to be removed to a country
hospital. That was after I had been under his treatment for six weeks.

The sights, sounds, and smell of the place had grown so sickening to
me, that I think I c