dering baby frocks and a perambulator, though her youngest boy was
already twelve years old and went to school at the Istituto Massimo.
The doctor and the maid looked at each other.

'I will telephone for one of the White Sisters,' the doctor said.
'They are the ones I am used to and I know the Mother Superior.'

It happened that the nurses of Santa Giovanna were much in demand at
that time, for there was an epidemic of influenza in the city, and as
they were almost all both ladies and Italians, society people
preferred them to those of other orders. Three-quarters of an hour
after the doctor had telephoned, one of them appeared at the Palazzo
Chiaromonte, a rather stout, grave woman of forty or more, who knew
her business.

She at once said, however, that she had come on emergency, but could
not stay later than the evening, when another Sister would replace
her; it would be her turn on the next morning to begin her week as
supervising nun in the Convent hospital, a duty taken in rotation by
three of the most experienced nuns, and it was absolutely necessary
that she should have her night's rest before taking charge of the
wards.

The Princess had fallen into a state of semi-consciousness which was
neither sleep nor stupor, but partook of both, and her face was
scarlet from the fever. Two or three times in the course of the
afternoon, however, she was evidently aware of the nurse's presence,
and she submitted without resistance to all that was done for her. The
maid, who had been in the sick-room all night and all the morning, was
now asleep, and the doctor had advised that the children should be
kept away from their mother altogether. When the doctor came again,
about six o'clock, the nun explained her own position to him, and
begged him to communicate with the Convent before leaving the palace,
as the Princess should certainly not be left without proper care, even
for an hour. He did what she asked, and the answer came back in the
Mother Superior's own voice. She said that she was very short of
nurses, and that it would be extremely inconvenient to send one, and
she therefore begged of him to get a Sister from another order.

He replied very crossly that he would do nothing of the sort, that he
believed in the White Sisters and meant to have a White Sister, and
that a White Sister must come, and a good one; and that if it was only
a matter of inconvenience, it was better that the Convent should be
inconvenienced