This advice came into her head the next morning after she had seen Thurso off to the village, and it was counsel which jumped with her inclinations, since, according to her view, the world (especially the world of out-of-doors) was a swarm of delightful and congenial occupations, and of them all none was so entrancing as catching sea-trout on a light rod and with light tackle. And since the river, which should be full of these inimitable fish, ran within some half-mile of the house, there was no great difficulty in the way of putting the doctor's recommendation into practice. She knew, of course, nothing of the fact that Thurso had let the fishing to the American whom he had met yesterday in the street, and had decided not to ask to dinner. Thurso was not to come home to lunch that day, and as the house would be full of workmen busy shifting furniture, and making the rooms ready, under the superintendence of one of the doctors, for the reception of the typhoid patients, Maud went off to the river, without a word to anyone, except an order for a sandwich lunch, with a heart that was high and exultant in spite of the surrounding calamitous conditions. This turning of the house into a hospital was entirely characteristic of Thurso; she rejoiced to think that their comfort, not money alone, was being sacrificed to sufferers. It was a cheap charity to give money, to spend merely unless expense pinched one, but it was a far more real effort of sympathy to turn the house into a feverward. It was that which brought people into touch, the knowledge that somebody's relief implied somebody else's trouble. Thurso was rich, the cost of what he did was of no account, but this was a more active sympathy.