“To offer your services as a nurse, I suppose?” replies Mrs. Darcy, as if suggesting an amusing absurdity, and unable to refrain from stealing a look at Lavinia, while her own face sparkles with mischievous mirth. “Exactly,” replies Féodorovna, with her baffling literalness. “I sent up my name, and he saw me almost at once.” She pauses. “And you made your proposal?” “Yes.” “He accepted it?” Féodorovna’s pale eyes have been meeting those of her interlocutor. They continue to do so, without any shade of confusion or mortification. “No; he refused it point-blank.” As any possible comment must take the form of an admiring ejaculation addressed to the medical officer in question, Susan bites her lips to ensure her own silence. “He put me through a perfect catechism of questions,” continues Miss Prince, with perfect equanimity. “Had I had any professional training?” “You haven’t, have you?” “I answered that I hadn’t, but that I could very easily acquire some.” “And he?” “Oh, he smiled, and asked me if I had any natural aptitude.” “Yes?” “I answered, ‘None, but that no doubt it would come.’” The corners of Mrs. Darcy’s mouth have got so entirely beyond her control that she can only turn one imploring appeal for help to Lavinia, who advances to the rescue. “And then?” she asks, with praiseworthy gravity. “Oh, then he shrugged his shoulders and answered drily, ‘I have had three thousand applications from ladies, from duchesses to washerwomen, which I have been obliged to refuse. I am afraid that I must make yours the three thousand and first;’ and so he bowed me out.” She ends, her pink self-complacency unimpaired, and both the other women look at her in a wonder not untouched with admiration. Neither of them succeeds in making vocal any expression of regret. “It is one more instance of the red tapeism that reigns in every department of our military administration,” says Miss Prince, not missing the lacking sympathy, and with an accent of melancholy superiority. “Next time I shall know better than to ask for any official recognition.” After a slight pause, “It is a bitter disappointment, of course; more acute to me naturally than it could be to any one else.” With this not obscure intimation of the end she had had in view in tendering her services to the troops in South Africa, Féodorovna departs. The two depositaries of her confidence look at each other with faces of unbridled mirth as soon as her long back is turned; but there is more of humorous geniality and less of impartial disgust in the matron’s than the maid’s. “Poor thing! I wonder what it feels like to be so great a fool as that!” said Mrs. Darcy, with a sort of lenient curiosity. “I declare that I should like to try for the hundredth part of a minute!” “She meant to nurse him!” ejaculates Lavinia, with a pregnant smile. “Poor man! If he knew what he had escaped!” “And now, what next?” asks Susan, spreading out her delicate, hardworking hands, and shaking her head.