"Poor, poor, _poor_ girl!" I passionately exclaimed. "To face that trial for the first time--terrified to death, naturally----" "Oh dear, no," he interposed, in his flippant way. "I am proud to inform you that Phyllis conducted herself like a perfect lady. She was as calm as possible." "How can you tell how calm she was?" I thundered at him. "You know nothing about it, though you are a doctor. _I_ know--I know what she had to go through! And no one near her to help her with a word of comfort, except a hired person--one of your precious hospital nurses that are mere iron-nerved machines--women who might as well be men for all the feelings they've got!" "But she had--she had," cried Edmund, hastily. "She had my mother near her--one of the kindest old souls that ever breathed." "_What?_" I stared at him, petrified with astonishment and indignation. _His_ mother assisting at the confinement of _my_ daughter! And _I_ shut out! I could not believe it for the moment--that they would deliberately put such an insult upon me. Edmund said it was not done deliberately, but was a pure accident. "It just happened," he said, "that she chanced to be in the house yesterday. She came in after morning church, as she often does, and seeing that something was up----" "What--as early as yesterday morning!" I burst out, thoroughly and justifiably angry now, and not caring to hide it. "You mean to say Phyllis was taken ill in the _morning_, Edmund, and you did not let me know? Oh, this is too much!" Of course he hastened to excuse himself--with what I feel sure, though I am sorry to say it, was a barefaced lie. He declared she was not taken ill in the morning--not until quite late in the day--but that she was a little restless and nervous, and his mother had stayed to cheer her. "Mother is such a bright, calm-minded, capable old body," he said--as if I were a dull, hysterical fool--"and she has had such swarms upon swarms of children, and such oceans of sick-nursing, and Phyllis is so fond of her, and as you were not get-at-able, Mater dear----"