er's critical
situation.

"Florence," said he to his sister, in reading the letter to her and his
wife, "I think you and I should go to P--immediately. You can be
mother's nurse until she recovers, and then it may not be hard to
reconcile all that is past."

Ellen looked earnestly in the face of her husband; something was on her
tongue, but she appeared to hesitate about giving it utterance.

"Does not that meet your approval?" asked Charles.

"Why may not I be the nurse?" was asked in hesitating tones.

"You!" said Charles, in a voice of surprise. "That should be the duty
of Florence."

"And my privilege," returned Ellen, speaking more firmly.

"What good would be the result?"

"Great good, I trust. Let me go and be the angel to her sick-chamber.
She is too ill to notice any one; she will not, therefore, perceive
that a stranger is ministering to her. As she begins to recover, and I
have an inward assurance that she will, I will bestow upon her the most
assiduous attentions. I will inspire her heart with grateful affection
for one whom she knows not; and when she asks for my name, I will
conceal it until the right moment, and then throw myself at her feet
and call her mother. Oh! let it be my task to watch in her
sick-chamber."

Neither Charles nor his sister said one word in opposition. On the next
day, they all started for P--. Charles Linden went with his excellent
wife to the house where his mother was residing with an old friend, and
opened to this friend their wishes. She readily entered into their
plans, and Ellen was at once constituted nurse.

For the first two days, there were but few encouraging symptoms. Mrs.
Linden was in a very critical situation. At the end of a week, the
fever abated, leaving the patient as helpless as an infant, and with
scarcely more consciousness of external things. During this time, Ellen
attended her with some of the feeling with which a mother watches over
her babe. Gradually the life-current in the veins of the sick woman
became fuller and stronger. Gradually her mind acquired the power of
acting through the external senses. Ellen perceived this. Now had come
the ardently hoped-for time. With a noiseless step, with a voice low
and tender, with hands that did their office almost caressingly, she
anticipated and met every want of the invalid.

As light began again to dawn upon the mind of Mrs. Linden, she could
not but notice the sweet-faced, gentle, assiduous strange