Part 15 (1/2)

”Lug along, mother! Here I am!” I managed to shout, and then I hung over that fence and laughed till my specs dropped off in the gra.s.s, and my stick fell away from me. I could not move without it, so I had to wait till the two women took pity on me and released me from my impalement.

Between them they got me into the house and on to my old sofa, and listened to what I had to say.

”I was share there must be some mistak',” said my mother, her self-respect restored, but, when I saw how affectionately her hand rested on the bowed head of her weeping daughter-in-law, I did not regret the bullet in my knee.

”We'll put it all down to your Theosophy, Belle--a collection of half-truths, more dangerous than lies, when you shove them too far.”

”Don't let us talk about that now, David. It breaks my heart to see you so thin. Your clothes are just hanging on you. Oh! if I had only known the true state of the case and been there to nurse you!”

”Mary has been very good to me, I a.s.sure you.”

”I don't want to think about that girl any more. I'm glad she's all right, but I hope never to lay eyes on her again.”

”Oh, yes, she's all right, and when she marries Dr. Flaker she won't want to '_pa_pa' and '_mam_ma' us, though she may condescend to patronize us a little.”

”I'll be gled o' the day she draps the name o' Gemmell!”

My wife is still a theosophist. If it pleases her to think that she has ascertained the nature and method of existence, I have nothing to say.

Sometimes I even look with envy upon her cheerful att.i.tude toward the approach of old age, her conviction that we are to have another chance--many more chances--to do and to be that which we have failed in doing and being, _this time_.

To judge of a tree by its fruits, there is, of course, no doubt that Isabel, because of, or in spite of her Theosophy, has been

THE MAKING OF MARY.

EPILOGUE.

NURSE DEAN walked through the Pest House, adjoining the great hospital, with the independent mien of the woman who is confident that her skirt clears the ground. Her keen, light-colored eyes took in at a glance the condition of every patient, the occupation of every nurse.

There had been a smallpox epidemic in Chicago, and three of the nurses in ---- Hospital had taken the disease, two of them lightly, one very heavily; but all were now convalescent. The two had gone home to their friends to recruit, but the third lay in an invalid chair in a darkened room, looking as if the desire of life had left her. Nurse Dean came in with a cheery smile, put on just outside the door, and proceeded to bathe the girl's eyes with warm water.

”When are you coming out to help me, Mary? I'm sure the light wouldn't hurt you now. I'm having too much night work, those other nurses being gone. I thought you might begin to ease me a little with the smallpox patients through the day.”

”I don't know as I care to go on with the business,” replied Mary, sometime called Mason.

”Nonsense! You're low-spirited just now because you're not quite better, but wait till you're on your feet and going around the wards again.

There's nothing like work of this sort to make a person forget herself.”

Nurse Dean's strong but gentle hands began to rub with oil the patient's neck and shoulders.

”I wish I could forget myself and everybody else too. I wish I had died of the smallpox. There aint anybody that cares whether I live or die.”

”Hus.h.!.+ Mary, you forget Dr. Flaker.”