d, met a
woman in a London street and looked in her face. Neither he nor she
stopped for an instant; he looked in her face, passed on, and never saw
her again. He married, had children, who now have children, but that
woman's face has never left him, and the colours of the portrait which
hangs in his soul's oratory are as vivid as ever. A thousand times has
he appealed to it; a thousand times has it sat in judgment; and a
thousand times has its sacred beauty redeemed him.

Miriam wrote to Miss Tippit expressing her newly-formed wish. Miss
Tippit, with some doubts as to her friend's fitness for the duty,
promised to do what she could; and at last, after complete recovery,
Miriam was allowed to begin a kind of apprenticeship to the art of
nursing in a small hospital, recommended by Miss Tippit's friend, the
doctor. One morning, a bright day in June, she was taken there. When
the door opened, there was disclosed a long white room with beds on
either side, and a broad passage down the middle. The walls were
relieved by a few illuminated sentences, scriptural and secular; women
dressed in a blue uniform were moving about noiselessly, and one of the
physicians on the staff, with some students or assistants, was standing
beside a patient happily unconscious, and demonstrating that he could
not live. Round one of the beds a screen was drawn; Miriam did not
quite know what it meant, but she guessed and shuddered. She passed on
to a little room at the end, and here she was introduced to her new
mistress, the lady-superintendent. She was a small, well-formed woman
of about thirty, with a pale thin face, lightish brown hair, grey eyes,
and thinnish lips. She also was dressed in uniform, but with a
precision and grace which showed that though the material might be the
same as that used by her underlings, it was made up at the West End.
She was evidently born to command, as little women often are. It was
impossible to be five minutes in her company without being affected by
her domination. Her very clothes felt it, for not a rebellious wrinkle
or crease dared to show itself. The nurses came to her almost every
moment for directions, which were given with brevity and clearness, and
obeyed with the utmost deference. The furniture was like that of a
yacht, very compact, scrupulously clean, and very handy. There was a
complete apparatus for instantaneously making tea, a luxurious little
armchair specially made for its own