xt moment; indeed, she was
more agitated than she had yet been, and for Annie to betray an approach
to tearfulness was a rare spectacle.

"There is something worse than my age. I am afraid I am not half good
enough. I have a hasty temper; you have frequently said so, mother. I
often speak sharply, and am not always aware when I am doing it. I hurt
people, as I hurt myself, without being able to help it--something seems
to come over me and impel me to do it. Often I cannot resist making game
of people. I am so silly and fond of fun, like a child, a great deal
worse than 'little May' ever is, when the fit is upon me. Now, if I
could think that I should lose patience with poor sick people, and wound
instead of comforting them, or that I should find them food for my love
of the ridiculous, and forget and neglect their wants in following my
own amusement, I should hate myself--I would die sooner than so disgrace
a nurse's calling."

"You would not do it, my dear," said Dr. Millar, with calm conviction.

"Why, what treason is this you are speaking against yourself?" cried
Mrs. Millar, bristling up in her daughter's defence, the assailant being
that daughter. "You unkind or unfeeling when there was any call for
kindness--whoever heard of such a thing? I should as soon suspect Dora
of harshness or levity in the same circumstances. Don't you remember my
bad eyes last winter, when I had to get that tincture dropped into them
so often that your father could not always be at home to do it? You
dropped the tincture as well as your father could, and though I know I
must have made faces wry enough to frighten a cat, you never vouchsafed
a remark, and I did not hear the ghost of a laugh. Poor Dora was ready
to read to me by the hour, and to fetch and carry for me all day long,
but when she tried to drop the tincture her hand shook so that she sent
the liquid down my cheeks; and she was so frightened for giving me pain
that I could see when I opened my eyes she was as white as a sheet, and
fit to faint herself."

"Dora's hand will get steadier and her heart harder by and by," said Dr.
Millar, laughing. "Not that she has the knack of the operator, any more
than you have, Maria. I don't think one of you has it, except Annie
here."

"That was nothing," said Annie quickly. She added in a lower tone, "And
oh, mother, how could you imagine that I should laugh at your pain?"

"It was only for a moment, and I daresay it was not agonizing,