"I 'ate her," muttered Maria, as soon as she was in the hall, which she crossed so as to get to the back stairs; "and if I haven't put a spoke in her wheel this time my name isn't what it is." Maria tightened her lips as if to condense her spleen against the patient, long-suffering woman who had had the misfortune to incur her dislike. "A thing like her!" she continued muttering. "A beggarly nurse, with not so much as a box of her own to bring down when she comes into a gentleman's house, and giving herself airs as if she was a lady. Oh, dear me, and indeed! Couldn't stoop to talk to a poor girl as if she was a fellow-creature, at the hospital; and down here, lor' bless us! anyone would think she was a duchess up in the skies instead of a common hospital nurse. Oh, I do 'ate pride, and if it wasn't that it do have a fall there'd be no living with such people." Maria was not very strong yet, and she stopped short--as she expressed it to herself, with her heart in her mouth--and turned red and then pale on hearing a faint rustle behind her, and the nurse's low sympathetic voice accosting her. "Ah, Maria, are you better this morning?" "Oh, yes, thank you, ma'am, much better." There was a tremendous emphasis on the "ma'am," suggestive of keen and subtle sarcasm, and the revolt of honest humility against assumption. "I am very glad," said the nurse gently. "Mrs Barnett said that there were several little things you might do now in Mr Elthorne's room." Maria's face turned scarlet, and she faced round viciously. "Then it was you, was it, who complained to her that I didn't do my work properly?" "I, my good girl?" said Nurse Elisia, smiling. "Oh, no." "It must have been. Nobody else wouldn't have been so mean as to go telling tales." "You are making a great mistake, Maria," said the nurse, with quiet dignity. "I certainly asked Mrs Barnett about a few things being done in your master's room, and she referred me to you." "I don't want you to come here teaching me my work." "Oh, no, I will not interfere, Maria," said the nurse coldly; "but it is necessary that the room should be seen to." "Thank you, ma'am; as if I didn't know what a 'ousemaid's work is. Oh, I haven't patience with such mean, tale-bearing, stuck-up ways." The nurse looked at her in a pained way, and for a few moments there was a slight flash of resentment in her face; but it died out directly, and she spoke very gently: "You are making a mistake, Maria." "Don't `Maria' me, please--ma'am," cried the housemaid; and that "ma'am" was tremendous. "Stop," said the nurse, gently and firmly, and her eyes seemed to fascinate the woman, as a hand was laid upon her arm. "You have passed through a very trying ordeal lately, and it has affected your nervous system. You must not give way to an angry, hysterical fit like this. It is dangerous in your state."