The sick man required but few attentions during the night, and was so painfully still the nurse went to his bedside a number of times to assure herself that he was breathing. Warren came in twice to reconnoitre and turn him over, and when morning peeped into the window of the dull little anteroom and he found that no new complications had developed and that Mr. Whitman had not suffered from the change, he was jubilant over it. After preparing breakfast, Mrs. Davis, as was her custom, went upstairs to sit with the patient while the others were below. She entered his room, and he--who up to this time had lain with downcast eyes, speechless, almost immovable--looked up, smiled, and exclaimed in a pleased voice, "Ah, Mary!" There was no mistaking the friendly relation between these two people, and before noon the nurse learned that the coarse housekeeper, the _dreaded_ housekeeper, was no other than this pleasant, tired-out woman, whose kindness she appreciated because she had at once made her feel so much at home. What did the nurse think! When Mr. Whitman was supposed to be dying, Mrs. Davis had in a way managed to meet the emergencies of the occasion; when a rubber sheet was called for, and no one offered to procure or order one, she gave her own oilcloth table cover to supply the need. When extra sheets were in demand and were not forthcoming from any quarter, she bought a piece of cloth, tore off the lengths, and was obliged to use them unlaundered and unhemmed, for even in this trying time only one person, besides her personal friends, had offered her the least assistance or inquired as to the straits to which she was put. This single exception was Mr. Whitman's sister-in-law, who had left a sick bed to come to Camden and do what she could. When with the coming of the nurse, and cessation from immediate anxiety, Mrs. Davis found time to look around, she discovered more than an abundance of work. An enormous wash had accumulated, her boiler had given out, and damp and cloudy weather necessitated drying everything within doors. Then as the eaves trough had fallen down, and the kitchen ceiling leaked, Warren's skill in carpentering was in instant demand. They found the nurse willing to assist in any way, and the housekeeper was delighted that she was plain spoken and matter-of-fact, and knew almost nothing of her patient as a writer; that she regarded him only as a sick and helpless old man, needing personal care, and not the adulation with which he was surfeited. Mr. Whitman himself took kindly to her, for like Mrs. Davis she never questioned him, and if she spoke at all, always touched upon the most simple, commonplace subjects.