And this changeling called herself by the
same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid of yore; she of
the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind,
stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper
hand with him, which (as John well knew) was not the true
relation of the sexes. He steeled his heart against this
sick-nurse.
'And how do you come to be here?' he asked.
She told him how she had nursed her father in his long
illness, and when he died, and she was left alone, had taken
to nurse others, partly from habit, partly to be of some
service in the world; partly, it might be, for amusement.
'There's no accounting for taste,' said she. And she told
him how she went largely to the houses of old friends, as the
need arose; and how she was thus doubly welcome as an old
friend first, and then as an experienced nurse, to whom
doctors would confide the gravest cases.
'And, indeed, it's a mere farce my being here for poor
Maria,' she continued; 'but your father takes her ailments to
heart, and I cannot always be refusing him. We are great
friends, your father and I; he was very kind to me long ago -
ten years ago.
A strange stir came in John's heart. All this while had he
been thinking only of himself? All this while, why had he
not written to Flora? In penitential tenderness, he took her
hand, and, to his awe and trouble, it remained in his,
compliant.
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