Accordingly I sent her back to this country and entered her, through the influence of friends, at a hospital.  She graduated at the head of her class, and although that was three or four years ago she has never been idle since.  She elected to take infectious cases, as the remuneration is higher, and although she is very small, with such tiny hands and feet that while abroad her gloves and boots had to be made to order, no doubt she has so trained her body that the strains in nursing fall upon no particular member.

In that case I paid for my own mistake, and she found her level in ample time, which is as it should be.  Of what use is experience if you are to be misled by family vanity?  As she is pretty and quite mad about children, no doubt she will marry; but the point is that she can wait; or, later, if the man should prove inadequate, she can once more support herself, and with enthusiasm, for she loves the work.

To be a nurse is no bed of roses; but neither is anything else.  To be dependent in the present stage of civilization is worse, and nothing real is accomplished in life without work and its accompaniment of hard knocks.  Nursing is not only a natural vocation for a woman, but an occupation which increases her matrimonial chances about eighty per cent.  Nor is it as arduous after the first year’s training is over as certain other methods of wresting a livelihood from an unwilling world—­reporting, for instance.  It is true that only the fit survive the first year’s ordeal, but on the other hand few girls are so foolish as to choose the nursing career who do not feel within themselves a certain stolid vitality.  After graduation from the hospital course their future depends upon themselves.  Doctors soon discover the most desirable among the new recruits, others find permanent places in hospitals; and, it may be added, the success of these young women depends upon a quality quite apart from mere skill—­personality.  In the spring of 1915 I was in a hospital and there was one nurse I would not have in the room.  I was told that she was one of the most valuable nurses on the staff, but that was nothing to me.

I could not see that any of the nurses in this large hospital was overworked.  All looked healthy and contented.  My own “night special,” save when I had a temperature and demanded ice, slept from the time she prepared me for the night until she rose to prepare me for the day, with the exception of the eleven o’clock supper which she shared with the hospital staff.  Being very pretty and quite charming she will marry, no doubt, although she refuses to nurse men.  But there are always the visiting doctors, the internes, and the unattached men in households, where in the most seductive of all garbs, she remains for weeks at a time.

In fact nearly all nurses are pretty.  I wonder why?

The hospital nurses during the day arrived at intervals to take my temperature, give me detestable nourishment, or bring me flowers or a telephone message.  It certainly never occurred to me to pity any of them, and when they lingered to talk they entertained me with pleasant pictures of their days off.  They struck me as being able to enjoy life very keenly, possibly because of being in a position to appreciate its contrasts.