CHAPTER VIII.

A NICHE IN LIFE, AND A WOMAN TO FILL IT.

"A Traveller between Life and Death."

WORDSWORTH.

MISS SAMPSON was at home this evening. It was not what one would have pictured to one's-self as a scene of home comfort or enjoyment; but Miss Sampson was at home. In her little room of fourteen feet square, up a dismal flight of stairs, sitting, in the light of a single lamp, by her air-tight stove, whereon a cup of tea was keeping warm; that, and the open newspaper on the little table in the corner, being the only things in any way cheery about her.

on.

Not even a cat or a canary-bird had she for companionship. There was no cozy arrangement for daily feminine employment; no work-basket, or litter of spools and tapes; nothing to indicate what might be her daily way of going On the broad ledges of the windows, where any other woman would have had a plant or two, there was no array of geraniums or verbenas-not even a seedling orange-tree or a monthly-rose. But in one of them lay a plaid shawl and a carpet-bag, and in the other that peculiar and nearly obsolete piece of feminine property, a paper bandbox, tied about with tape.

-Packed up for a journey?

Reader, Miss Sampson was always packed up. She was that much-enduring, all-foregoing creature, a professional

nurse.

There would have been no one to feed a cat, or a canarybird, or to water a rose-bush, if she had had one. Her home was no more to her than his station at the corner of the street is to the handcart-man or the hackney-coachman. It was only the place where she might receive orders; whence she might go forth to the toilsomeness and gloom of one sick-room after another, returning between each sally and the next to her cheerless post of waiting, — keeping her strength for others, and living no life of her own. She dwelt, as it were, in the dim and desolate border-land that lies between the stirring world and the unconscious grave; now going down into the verge of the infinite gloom with one who must pass beyond it, and now upholding and helping one who struggles back to the light of earth; but never tarrying long herself among the living and the strong.

There was nothing in Miss Sampson's outer woman that would give you, at first glance, an idea of her real energy and peculiar force of character. She was a tall and slender figure, with no superfluous weight of flesh; and her long, thin arms seemed to have grown long and wiry with lifting, and easing, and winding about the poor wrecks of mortality that had lost their own vigor, and were fain to beg a portion of hers. Her face was thin and rigid, too, moulded to no mere graces of expression, but with a strong outline, and a habitual compression about the mouth that told you, when you had once learned somewhat of its meaning, of the firm will that would go straight forward to its object, and do, without parade or delay, whatever there might be to be

done.

Decision, determination, judgment, and readiness were all in that habitual look of a face on which little else

had been called out for years. But you would not so have read it at first sight. You would almost inevitably have called her a "scrawny, sour-looking old maid."

A creaking, deliberate, weighty step was heard upon the stair, and then a knock of decision at Miss Sampson's door. "Come in!"

And as she spoke, Miss Sampson took her cup and saucer in her hand. That was to be kept waiting no longer for whatever visitor it might chance to be. She was composedly taking her first sip as Doctor Gracie entered.

"Don't move, Miss Sampson; don't let me interrupt." "I don't mean to!" answered the nurse, laconically. "What sends you here?"

"A new patient."

Humph! Not one of the last sort, I hope. You know my kind, and 't aint any use talking up about any others. Any old woman can make gruel, and feed a baby with catnip tea. Don't offer me any more such work as that! If it's work that is work, speak out! I'm always ready." It's work that nobody else can do for me. A critical case of typhoid, and nobody in the house that understands such illness. I've promised to bring you to-night."

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You knew I was back, then?"

"I knew you would be. I only sent you at the pinch. I warned them you'd go as soon as things were tolerably comfortable."

"Of course I would. What business should I have where there was nothing wanted of me but to go to bed at nine o'clock, and sleep till daylight? That aint the sort of corner I was cut out to fill."

"Well, drink your tea, and put on your bonnet. There's a carriage at the door."

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Man? or woman?" asked Miss Sampson, setting down her empty cup on the now cooling stove.

"A man, Mr. Henderson Gartney, Hickory Street." "Out of his head?"

"Yes, and getting more so. Family all frightened to death."

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'Keep 'em out of my way, then, and let me have him to myself. One crazy patient is enough, at a time, for any one pair of hands. I'm ready."

The plaid shawl and bonnet had her bandbox in her hand. pet-bag.

were on, and Miss Sampson The doctor took up the car

In fifteen minutes more, they were in Hickory Street; and the nurse was speedily installed, or rather installed herself, in her office. Dr. Gracie hastened away to another patient, promising to call again at bedtime.

"Now, ma'am," said Miss Sampson to Mrs. Gartney, who, after taking her first to the bedside of the patient, had withdrawn with her to the little dressing-room adjoining, and given her a résumé of the treatment thus far followed, with the doctor's last directions to herself,

་་

'you just go down stairs to your supper. I know, by your looks, you aint had a mouthful to-day. That's no way to help take care of sick folks."

Mrs. Gartney smiled a little, feebly; and an expression of almost childlike rest and relief came over her face. She felt herself in strong hands.

"And you?" she asked. 'here?"

"Shall I send you something

"I've drunk a cup of tea, before I started.

If I see my

way clear, I'll run down for a bite after you get through. I don't want any special providings. I take my nibbles anyhow, as I go along. You need n't mind, more 'n as if I was n't here. I shall find my way all over the house, and pick up what's necessary. Now, you go."

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Only tell me how he seems to you," questioned Mrs. Gartney, lingering anxiously.

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Well, not so terrible sick. Just barely bad enough to keep me here. I don't take any easy cases.

The odd, abrupt manner and speech comforted, while they somewhat astonished Mrs. Gartney. Only that she felt sure Dr. Gracie would have brought her no one but the very person who ought to be here, she would have hardly known what to think of this rough-spoken, unceremonious

woman.

"Leave the bread and butter and cold chicken on the table," said she to her parlor maid afterward, when the teathings were about to be removed; "and keep the chocolate hot, down stairs. Faithie, sit here; and if Miss Sampson comes down by and-by, see that she is made comfortable.”

It was ten o'clock when Miss Sampson came down, and then it was with Dr. Gracie, who had just made his last visit for the night.

"Cheer up, little lady!" said the doctor, meeting Faith's anxious, inquiring glance that sped so quickly and eagerly from one face to the other. "Not so bad, by any means, The only difficulty will be to keep Nurse She won't stay a minute, if we begin to get

as we might be. Sampson here. better too fast. think; and

Yes I will take a bit of chicken, I what have you there that's hot?" as the maid came in with the chocolate pot, in answer to Faith's ring of the bell. 'Ah, yes! Chocolate! I missed my

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