"Come, bring the water and fill up after me. There is twenty beds left yet. I gave the right sort of symptoms to the doctor, and he left the kind of medicine that we like best for almost the whole lot." The young woman followed her ruthless leader into the ward, carrying the water-pitcher in her unsteady hand, for she had not reached the hardened audacity of her preceptress, and there was something in the scene to make even a debased nature tremble. "Don't, don't take more than half; they will die before morning if we do!" she whispered, as the eyes of a patient, full of heart-rending reproach, was turned upon their work. "See, this one is so feeble." "Poh, a little brandy, more or less, what does it signify?" cried Mrs. Fuller. "The wine, then leave the wine. I did not take a drop!" "More fool, you!" "Hush!" said the young woman, "I hear her coming. Leave the rest; we shall be found out." "Take this and give me the water. Out of the way, now, and see that you don't drink any till I come!" The young woman hurried out of the room, meeting Mary Fuller and little Isabel in the passage. "They want water. I am going for more water. It is wonderful how they keep us running night and day!" she said, hoping to draw off their attention with a gratuitous falsehood. Neither of the little girls answered, but passed gently into the ward. Mrs. Fuller was by a cot near the door, holding her water-pitcher to the lips of a patient; nothing could appear more kind than her demeanor. "Ah, here you are," she said, nodding to the children, "she is asleep yet! Don't make any more noise than you can help." Isabel went up to her mother's cot, and kneeling by it looked earnestly upon the pale and languid features. "_Is_ she better?--see how white she is, how her eyes are sunken. She hardly breathes at all. Oh, Mary, _is_ she better?" "Yes, the Doctor says so--and she does not mutter to herself or seem so restless as she did. I think, Isabel that she _is_ better!" The tears gushed into Isabel's eyes. She bent down and softly kissed the pale hand of her mother. Mrs. Chester started and opened her eyes; they fell upon her child, and instantly that full gaze was blended with tears. "Isabel, my child." The words were very, very faint, but oh, how sweetly they fell upon those young hearts. "She knows me--oh, Mary, she knows me!" cried the child, and her beautiful face grew radiant amid the tears that covered it, like a flower struck with sunshine when the dew is heaviest on its petals. "Mamma, oh, my own mamma, this is Mary, our Mary Fuller!" The sick woman turned her eyes toward her little nurse. She tried to lift her hand, but it only shook on the checked quilt. "Mary, my good, good Mary!" Mary knelt down softly by her friend, and bowing her head wept in sweet and grateful joy. "Where am I? Where have I been?" asked the invalid, still more faintly.