"I never had a chance to study anything," responded Melvina in a matter-of-fact manner. "All I know I've picked up as I went along." "By study I mean that you have had a wide opportunity to observe human nature," explained Lucy. "If by human nature you mean folks, I have," Melvina said in her habitual monotone. After answering the remark, however, she made no further attempt at conversation but lapsed into a patient silence, regarding Lucy with her big, faded blue eyes. As she stood there, one gained an impression that she could have stood thus for an indefinite length of time--forever, if necessary. Not once did her gaze wander to her surroundings, and when Lucy conducted her to the room that had been assigned her she entered it without curiosity. "I hope you will be comfortable here," the girl murmured with a hostess's solicitude. "I shall be." "And if there is anything you want----" "I'll ask for it." Although there was no rebuke in the utterance, before this monument of composure, Lucy, like David Copperfield in the presence of the waiter, suddenly felt very young. "Thank you; I wish you would," she managed to stammer, hastily closing the door. She reflected with amusement, as she made her retreat, that there were several things she had intended to caution the new nurse not to mention, one being that it was Martin Howe who had brought her hither. But after having once seen Melvina Grey, such warnings became superfluous and absurd. There was no more probability of Melvina's imparting to Ellen the circumstances of her coming than there was of the rocks on the mountain side breaking into speech and voicing their past history. Therefore she crept downstairs to the kitchen to prepare supper, pondering as she went as to how Ellen and this strangely stolid attendant would get on together. "It will be like a storm dashing against granite cliffs," she thought whimsically. "Well, there is one merciful thing about it--I shall not have to worry about Melviny gossiping or telling tales." In this assumption Lucy was quite right. Melvina Grey proved not only to be as dumb as an oyster but even more uncommunicative than that traditionally self-contained bivalve. Notwithstanding her cheery conversation about the weather, the crops, Sefton Falls, the scenery, she never trespassed upon personalities, or offered an observation concerning her immediate environment; nor could she be beguiled into narrating what old Herman Cole died of, or whether he liked his son's wife or not. This was aggravating, for Melvina had been two years a nurse in the Cole family and was well qualified to clear up these vexed questions. Equally futile, too, were Ellen's attempts to wring from her lips any confidential information about the Hoyles' financial tangles, despite the fact that she had been in the house during the tragedy of Samuel Hoyle's failure and had welcomed the Hoyle baby into the world.