Thus spoke Mrs. Postlethwaite to her doctor, as he introduced into her presence a little figure in nurse’s cap and apron. “You said I needed care,--more care than I was receiving. I answered that my old nurse could give it, and you objected that she or someone else must look after Miss Postlethwaite. I did not see the necessity, but I never contradict a doctor. So I yielded to your wishes, but not without the proviso (you remember that I made a proviso) that whatever sort of young woman you chose to introduce into this room, she should not be fresh from the training schools, and that she should be strong, silent, and capable. And you bring me this mite of a woman--is she a woman? she looks more like a child, of pleasing countenance enough, but who can no more lift me--” “Pardon me!” Little Miss Strange had advanced. “I think, if you will allow me the privilege, madam, that I can shift you into a much more comfortable position.” And with a deftness and ease certainly not to be expected from one of her slight physique, Violet raised the helpless invalid a trifle more upon her pillow. The act, its manner, and the smile accompanying it, could not fail to please, and undoubtedly did, though no word rewarded her from lips not much given to speech save when the occasion was imperative. But Mrs. Postlethwaite made no further objection to her presence, and, seeing this, the doctor’s countenance relaxed and he left the room with a much lighter step than that with which he had entered it. And thus it was that Violet Strange--an adept in more ways than one--became installed at the bedside of this mysterious woman, whose days, if numbered, still held possibilities of action which those interested in young Helena Postlethwaite’s fate would do well to recognize. Miss Strange had been at her post for two days, and had gathered up the following: That Mrs. Postlethwaite must be obeyed. That her step-daughter (who did not wish to die) would die if she knew it to be the wish of this domineering but apparently idolized woman. That the old man of the clocks, while senile in some regards, was very alert and quite youthful in others. If a century old--which she began greatly to doubt--he had the language and manner of one in his prime, when unaffected by the neighbourhood of the clocks, which seemed in some non-understandable way to exercise an occult influence over him. At table he was an entertaining host; but neither there nor elsewhere would he discuss the family, or dilate in any way upon the peculiarities of a household of which he manifestly regarded himself as the least important member. Yet no one knew them better, and when Violet became quite assured of this, as well as of the futility of looking for explanation of any kind from either of her two patients, she resolved upon an effort to surprise one from him.