While Effie was speaking, Mrs. Staunton looked fixedly at her. There are moments which all mothers know, when they put themselves completely out of sight, when they blot themselves out, as it were. This time had come to Mrs. Staunton now. After a pause, she said, and her words came out even without a sigh: "The question, after all, is this, Effie: What will your father say?" "When he thinks it out carefully he will be pleased," replied Effie. "He must be interested in the profession I want to take up. How often--oh, how often, mother--has he groaned and sighed at the bad nursing which his patients get! You know you have always said, and he has said the same, that I am a born nurse. Won't he be proud and pleased when I come home and tell him all about the new ways in which things are done in London hospitals? You know there are six of us, and Agnes and Katie are growing up, and can take my place at home presently. Of course I know that father is quite the cleverest doctor in Whittington, but nobody gets ill here, and it is quite impossible to go on clothing and feeding six of us with no means at all. I do not think I am vain, mother, and I do not really care very much about dress, but mine is shabby, is it not? I think I should look pretty--as pretty as you must have looked long ago--if I were better dressed." "No dress can change your face," said Mrs. Staunton, with sudden passion. "You have the sweetest and dearest face in the world to me. When you go away the sunshine will go out of my life; but, my darling, my darling, I won't--you shall never have it to say that your mother stood in your way. I must think, however, of what your father will say to this. I can only warn you that if there is one person your father dreads and dislikes more than another, it is the modern girl. He said to me, 'Thank God, Effie has none of that hideous modernity about her. She is fairly good-looking; she does not think about Girton or Newnham, or any of the women's colleges; in short, she has no advanced ideas.'" "That is all he knows," replied Effie. "The fact is, I must and will do something to earn my living. You are sending George out into the world to win his spurs, and I am going to win mine." "In what way?" asked Mrs. Staunton. "You know you are not clever." "Dorothy thinks I can be a nurse, mother. May she come and see you, and talk it all over?" "There is no harm in talking it over," said Mrs. Staunton. "But now I wish you would go upstairs and help Susan to put the children to bed. You can bring baby downstairs if you like, and I will undress him. Run along, Effie--run along, there's a good child." "Oh, yes, mother, I'll go; only just answer me one question first. May Dorothy come here after supper to-night?" "What is the use of my seeing her? Your father is the one to decide." "I will ask father to stay in after supper."