There were two "Houses of Cure" in St. Mary's, both under the care of skilful physicians, who made specialties of treatment with the waters of the springs. One of these physicians was a Roman Catholic, and employed no nurses except the Sisters from the Convent of the Bleeding Heart. They came in turn, in bands of six or eight; and stayed three months at a time. In the other House, under the care of an English physician, nurses were hired without reference to their religion. As soon as Hetty's house was all in order, and her shrubs and trees set out, she went one morning to this House, and asked to see the physician in charge. With characteristic brevity, she stated that she had come to St. Mary's to earn her living as a nurse, and would like to secure a situation. The doctor looked at her scrutinizingly. "Have you ever nursed?" "No, sir." "What do you know about it then?" "I have seen a great many sick people." "How was that?" Hetty hesitated, but with some confusion replied: "My husband was a doctor, and I often went with him to see his patients." "You are a widow then?" "No, sir." "What then?" said the physician, severely. Poor Hetty! She rose to her feet; but, recollecting that she had no right to be indignant, sat down, and replied in a trembling voice: "I cannot tell you, sir, any thing about my trouble. I have come here to live, and I want to be a nurse." "Father Antoine knows me," she added, with dignity. Father Antoine's name was a passport. Doctor Macgowan had often wished that he could have all his nurses from the convent. "You are a Catholic, then?" he said. "No, indeed!" exclaimed Hetty, emphatically. "I am nothing of the sort." "How is it that you mention Father Antoine, then?" "He knew my father well, and me also, years ago; and he is the only friend I have here." Dr. Macgowan had an Englishman's instinctive dislike of unexplained things and mysterious people. But Hetty's face and voice were better than pedigrees and certificates. Her confident reference to Father Antoine was also enough to allay any immediate uneasiness, and, "for the rest, time will show," thought the doctor; and, without any farther delay, he engaged Hetty as one of the day nurses in his establishment. In after years Dr. Macgowan often looked back to this morning, and thought, with the sort of shudder with which one looks back on a danger barely escaped: "Good God! what if I had let that woman go?" All Hetty's native traits especially adapted her to the profession of nursing; and her superb physical health was of itself a blessing to every sick man or sick woman with whom she came in contact. Before she had been in Dr. Macgowan's house one week, all the patients had learned to listen in the morning for her step and her voice: they all wanted her, and begged to be put under her charge.