“A fine absence of nervousness,” he said; “he looked as if he was going to pay a call. And I don’t see any nervousness here, either. Miss Fortescue, I think you said you knew something about nursing, so I have put you with Nurse James in charge of the first ward. In a day or two she will have put you in the way of your work, and then probably I shall ask you to look after certain houses, or take charge of patients by yourself. Miss Avesham also is under her in the same ward. You have about forty cases, some very serious. Please put yourselves entirely in her hands: she is admirable. There is no need to tell you that on your care and watchfulness many lives depend. You will both have day nursing only. This way, please.” CHAPTER XV The weeks that followed were the most terrible and most wearing that Jeannie had ever known. During the first day or two she showed a real aptitude for her work; she was gentle, firm, and untiring, and as the epidemic increased Miss Fortescue was soon moved to help in a larger ward, and a dozen cases in a smaller ward, off the one under Nurse James, were put under Jeannie. The head nurse was thus always at hand in case she wanted her, but otherwise Jeannie had to manage her patients alone. It was a constant matter of anxiety to Jeannie as to whether she ought or ought not to summon the other. At first the slightest rise in a patient’s temperature seemed to her enough grounds on which to ask the inspection of the elder woman, for she had been told she could not be too careful. Nurse James herself was worked almost to death; and on Jeannie’s calling her one day to look at a patient she had exclaimed, snappishly: “It would be less trouble to look after them myself.” Jeannie flushed slightly, but said nothing, and went back to her work. Nurse James hurried out of the room, but returned a moment later. “You must forgive me, Miss Avesham,” she said, “but I am worried to death. What we should do without you and Miss Fortescue I don’t know. But the temperature always goes up a little in the afternoon; it is only the very sudden rise or sudden falls, particularly the latter, which need alarm you.” Jeannie smiled. “I see; I will try to remember,” she said. “You are very patient with me.”