e the result: I shall come
here no more, and I shall have to take Sister Hannah's place at the
Measles Refuge. There's nothing in this world that I hate like measles.
I've had them, but that doesn't make the slightest difference. Sister
Hannah has asked to be relieved, and I know she wants this place
dreadfully."

"She cannot come here!" I exclaimed. "I don't believe I ever had the
measles, and I will not have them."

"She is a stenographer," said she, "and she will most certainly be
ordered to take my place if I make known what I have done to-day."

"Supposing you were sure that you were not obliged to go to the Measles
Refuge," I asked, "should you still regret giving up this position?"

"Of course I should," she answered promptly. "I must work at something,
or I cannot stay in the House of Martha; and there is no work which I
like so well as this. It interests me extremely."

"Now hear me," said I, speaking perhaps a little too earnestly, "and I
do not believe any one could give you better advice than I am going to
give you. What has occurred this morning was strictly and absolutely an
accident. A wasp came in at the window and tried to sting you; and there
is no woman in the world, be she a sister or not, who could sit still
and let a wasp sting her."

"No," she interrupted, "I don't believe Mother Anastasia could do it."

"And what followed," I continued, "was perfectly natural, and could not
possibly be helped. You were obliged to defend yourself, and in so doing
you were obliged to act just as any other woman would act. Nothing else
would have been possible, and the talking and all that came in with the
rest. You couldn't help it."

"That's the way the matter appeared to me," said she; "but the question
would arise, if it were all right, why should I hesitate to tell the
sisters?"

"Hesitate!" I exclaimed. "You should not even think of such a thing. No
matter what the sisters really thought about it, I am sure they would
not let you come here any more, and you would be sent to the measles
institution, and thus actually be punished for the attempted wickedness
of a wasp."

"But there is the other side of the matter," said she; "would it not be
wicked in me not to tell them?"

"Not at all," I replied. "You do not repeat to the sisters all that I
tell you to write?"

"Of course not," she interrupted.

"And you do not consider it your duty," I continued, "to relate every
detail of the business in whi