Before taking up stenography, I had studied for a trained nurse in a New York hospital and had passed a creditable examination, and for nearly two years had practised almost constantly until my health failed and I was obliged to abandon my profession and seek another employment where the responsibility and strain upon my nerves were not so great. I was very well now. Rest and Oakfield air had done me a great deal of good. I had still three weeks’ vacation and the thought entered my mind, Why not offer my services? I had had a great deal of experience with fever in its worst form and had never lost a case. In a few words I told him that I had once been a trained nurse, and offered to go to Mr. Travers until something better could be done. “You a nuss! Well, I never! What will happen next?” Mrs. Parks exclaimed, and I think I sank a little in her estimation. “You a trained nuss! How did it happen, and why didn’t you stick to it?” As well as I could I explained, while Mr. McPherson listened and finally said: “I b’lieve you’ll do, and I’m glad, for I’m afraid he’s goin’ to be awful sick, it comes on so fast, and that quill or something the doctor put in his mouth registered over a hundred. Can you go to-night?” It was rather sudden changing my quiet quarters to a sick-room, with the old care upon me; but the remuneration, I knew, would be sure and more than pay my expenses at Mrs. Parks’, and I said I would go. All this time Rena had not spoken, but she was very pale as she listened to the conversation. She was thinking what if he should die and never know the truth, and she said at last to Mr. McPherson: “You think he will get well, don’t you?” “I hope so, but there’s no telling. If I thought he wouldn’t I s’pose I ought to send for Miss Irene. Maybe I ought to as it is, or let her know. They were the same as engaged, or would have been. What do you think?” He looked at me, but it was Rena who answered quickly: “No, oh, no, don’t send; don’t write at once. Wait and see. You know she has gone to her sick brother. She must not leave him or be troubled.” We were a little surprised at Rena’s vehemence, which looked as if she did not wish to have Irene return even if there were no sick brother. We had been a good deal puzzled about that brother, and Mrs. Parks had questioned Rena rather closely with regard to him, learning that he was not in New York, but in Claremont, a place of which she had never heard. Thinking that when Tom came back she would tell the whole truth and that until he came she would say as little as possible of Irene. Rena was so noncommittal and evidently so unwilling to discuss the matter that even Mrs. Parks gave it up, saying confidently to me: “He’s some dissipated critter, I presume, that they are ashamed of.” Now a new diversion had come up, and Irene’s brother was for the time forgotten in the excitement of Mr. Travers’ illness and my going to care for him.