CHAPTER I.

A MYSTERIOUS APPLICANT.

One dismal day in November—a day when the sky was dull and leaden, when the wind sighed and moaned mournfully, and, a fine cold rain that was almost sleet was falling, a young girl, clad in a long, dark ulster, a brown felt hat upon her head, her face concealed by a thick veil, entered the reception office of the City Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Going directly to the clerk, who sat within a little box-office, she asked:

“Can I see the superintendent?”

The woman eyed her curiously for a moment, then curtly replied:

“This isn’t visitors’ day, miss, and if you’ve come to see any friend, calling upon the superintendent won’t do you any good, for we never break our rules.”

“I have no friends here; I have not come to visit any one; I simply desire to see the superintendent upon a matter of business,” the young girl quietly returned, but with a certain dignity which appeared to impress the clerk, for she at once rang the bell, and then bent again over the book in which she had been writing.

Presently a man appeared.

“What’s wanted?” he briefly asked.

“Is the superintendent in his office?” the clerk inquired, without lifting her eyes from her book.

“Yes.”

“Tell him there’s a lady here who wishes to see him.”

The man retreated after darting an inquisitive glance at the visitor, and was absent about five minutes, when he reappeared, and by a sign indicated that the girl was to follow him. Passing through a narrow hall, her guide at length opened a door on his left, and told his companion to enter.

“The superintendent’s in his office with one of the directors, but he’ll be out presently,” he said, then vanished, closing the door after him.

The girl sat upon a chair near the window, turning her veil back from her face, a heavy sigh escaping her as she did so. The act disclosed a pale but strikingly beautiful countenance. The features were perfect, clear-cut, and with the imprint of the patrician plainly stamped upon them.

The brow was rather low, but full and beautifully shaped and crowned by waving black hair, as fine and glossy as silk. A pair of great jet-black eyes were shaded by long curling lashes. The nose was small and straight, the cheeks delicately rounded, the mouth a marvel of loveliness and sweetness, while the prettily rounded chin had a charming little dimple at its base.

Her complexion was strangely fair for one who had such dark hair and eyes, and this fairness was enhanced by the vivid scarlet of her lips and the utter absence of color in her cheeks.

There was an expression of sadness in her eyes, and every now and then a quiver of pain swept over her red lips and found vent in a deep sigh, which plainly betrayed that she had some secret anxiety or trouble on her mind.

She was rather slightly formed and delicate in appearance, yet there was strength and vigor in her movements, despite the air of depression that pervaded her attitude.

Presently a door, opposite the one by which she had entered, opened, and a tall, rather awkward man came into the room.

He eyed his visitor with a keen glance, as he bowed courteously to her, and then stood waiting for her to state her business.

She arose as he came forward, and, extending a slip of printed paper toward him, remarked: “I have come to you, sir, in reply to this advertisement for nurses.”

The man regarded her with surprise.

Her every tone and word and gesture betrayed culture and refinement—that she had been delicately and even aristocratically reared, and although adverse circumstances might have driven her to the necessity of working for her own support, he wondered that she should have chosen the laborious avocation of a common nurse.

“Have you had any experience in nursing?” he inquired, as he took the slip from her and ran his eye over it.

“Yes, sir, although I have never been regularly trained. I had a—a friend”—her voice faltered slightly over the word—“who was an invalid for several years, and so I have had a great deal of experience in the sick-room.”

“Hum—how old are you?” asked the superintendent, glancing sharply at the beautiful face of his companion, and thinking that she seemed very young for one who professed to know so much regarding the care of invalids.

A delicate flush arose for a moment to her cheek, as if she felt the touch of irony in his question; but she replied with the utmost self-possession:

“Twenty-one last month. I would like very much, sir, to become a trained nurse, and that is why I have applied to you to-day.”

“You are slightly built—you do not look very strong, and I do not need to tell you that it takes a robust constitution to endure the hardships of nursing,” the man returned, as he regarded her curiously.

The girl straightened her lithe form with a movement that was replete with energy.

“I know that I do not have the appearance of being very strong, but I am,” she said positively. “I have had long and thorough training in physical culture—I continue the practice of the various exercises daily, and my muscles and sinews are strong and flexible as steel.”

As she concluded, she threw out her right arm with a movement which showed that there was great latent strength in it for one apparently so delicately built.

“You are quite pale, too—you do not look very well,” continued her companion, without appearing to heed her statements.

“I am naturally pale—it is a complexion that I inherit; but I am never ill,” she quietly responded.

The superintendent bent his head in thought a moment.

He knew that there was, in some instances, more endurance in persons of her physique than in those more robust, and that they frequently made better nurses.

He was greatly prepossessed by the quiet, self-contained manner of the girl, and a certain reserve force which had made itself apparent from the moment when she had first spoken, and he felt inclined to give her a trial.

“We are in great need of nurses at present,” he said at length, “and I think I will take you on probation, as the Methodists say—that is, if you can come and begin your duties immediately.”

“I can come at once—I can remain now if you like, since I am entirely at liberty, and I can send for my trunk by an express messenger,” she answered with an undercurrent of eagerness that was somewhat at variance with her previous calmness and self-possession.

“Very well. I would like you to remain. Is your home—are your friends in this city?”

“No, sir,” was the brief reply.

Again the man glanced sharply at her. A certain sadness that seemed to pervade her, together with the quiet dignity and self-possession of her bearing, somehow moved him strangely, while it was evident from the brevity of her last reply that she intended to guard her previous history from all inquisitiveness.

“Your name, if you please?” he asked, seating himself at his desk, and opening a book that lay upon it, although his eyes never left the applicant’s fair face.

Again a slight flush leaped to her cheek at this question, and she hesitated an instant before replying; then she said, quietly:

“Salome Howland.”

The superintendent wrote the name, together with her age in his register, though a queer little smile played over his lips the while; then, with his pen suspended over the next line, he continued:

“Your birthplace, if you please, and present place of residence?”

“I was born upon the Atlantic Ocean. My present place of residence is—Boston,” she answered, without changing a muscle of her countenance.

Clearly she intended to keep her identity in as much obscurity as possible.

Again that peculiar smile curved her companion’s lips, and it was with no little eagerness and curiosity that he put his next question, for he was becoming deeply interested in this fair stranger.

“You, of course, have the necessary references?” he observed, in a matter-of-fact tone. “All nurses who are admitted here are required to be well recommended.”

A flash of color leaped to her brow, and he could see that her delicate under lip quivered painfully, while there was a moment of ominous silence.

Then she turned and confronted him squarely, and lifted her beautiful face appealingly to him, meeting his glance with her great black eyes frankly and unflinchingly.

“That is the one weak point in my application, sir,” she said. “I have no reference—no recommendation to give you. I am alone in the world, and friendless—obliged to provide for my daily necessities. I came to you from the death-bed of the only relative I had in the world.” She caught her breath with a little sob at this, and the man’s heart was touched, “and what I have told you about my abilities as a nurse is strictly true. My personal character, I assure you, is above criticism;” this with a proud uplifting of her small head that carried conviction with it, and proved to her companion that she was no ordinary person, and would scorn to do anything that would serve to lower her in the estimation of others, or the esteem of herself; “But,” she added, “I have only my own word to prove all this to you, and if such proof is necessary, I can only give it to you by my daily deportment, during my term of ‘probation.’”

It was a little out of order for him to receive a nurse under such circumstances; but the more he saw of her the more interested he became, and his curiosity to see and know more was excited.

Then, too, there was a certain ward in the hospital that was sorely in need of nurses. He saw that she was intelligent, cool, and clear-headed, with more than ordinary reserve force and self-possession, and feeling confident that she was all she represented herself to be—though he had some doubt that she had given her real name—he determined to waive the strict letter of requirement, for once, and engage her without inquiry.

He completed the entry in his register, and then told her that she might consider herself as engaged for a month upon trial; after which she could be booked, if she gave satisfaction, as a regular nurse.

An expression of infinite relief swept over her face at this information—a look which seemed to betray a sense of rest and security, as if she suddenly felt that a safeguard from dreaded danger had been thrown around her.

Her magnificent eyes lighted; more of energy and animation than she had yet shown took possession of her, while the smile with which she thanked the superintendent revealed two rows of the whitest and most perfect teeth that he had ever seen.

“I hope she isn’t a coquette,” he mused with some anxiety, as he for the first time realized the full power of her beauty; “for if she is, she’ll be turning the heads of the male nurses and young doctors, and make no end of mischief for us.”

But it was too late to retract now, and after settling a few more preliminaries and assigning her to the ward wherein she was to serve, he rose and told her to follow.

He led her from the office building, through the spacious rounds of the hospital, to the main entrance, and thence to a ward in a large wing. Then calling the head nurse of that department, he introduced the novitiate and stated that she was prepared to enter upon her duties immediately.

* * * * *

Salome Howland’s month of probation passed rapidly, and during that time she endeared herself to every one with whom she came in contact. The head nurse of the ward spoke in the highest praise of her. She had never before had any novice, she said, so efficient—no one so intelligent, or so thoroughly interested and enthusiastic in her work; while the patients whom she attended grew to love the very sound of her footstep. There was no one so gentle, so patient, and sympathetic as Miss Howland, they affirmed—no one who had so bright a smile, such cheery comforting words for those who were suffering and depressed; no one whose touch was so tender and soothing, whose voice was so musically modulated, whose steps were so light, whose service so willing.

“I am glad that you like her, and that she proves so efficient,” the superintendent remarked when, at the end of the allotted month, he sought the head nurse to ascertain if she was giving satisfaction. “I should have been sorry to have sent her away, for she seemed anxious to become a trained nurse, and somehow I feel deeply interested in her.”

“She is a treasure! She throws her whole heart and soul into her work; if it will only last,” the head nurse added, with a sigh, as if she feared it would not.

“Do you think she is quite well? she looks so pale, while she is not nearly so robust as most of the nurses,” the superintendent remarked, as his glance followed the movements of the girl, who in her pretty white cap and apron seemed even more dainty and delicate than when he had first seen her, in her felt hat and ulster, in his office.

She was moving lightly about the ward, with a free, elastic but noiseless step, distributing the flowers that were sent up every day from the conservatories for the patients, and he did not fail to notice how every face brightened at her approach, and how fondly the glance of every one lingered upon her; and surely, he thought, she was a goodly sight for any one to look upon.

“She seems to be perfectly well and strong,” the nurse responded. “I am surprised at times to see how strong she is. She looks delicate, I admit; but her powers of endurance are wonderful, and she can manage with as little sleep as any one I ever saw. She is remarkably intelligent and practical too, both regarding her own health and the treatment of the patients. She obeys rigidly the rules for physical culture, is regular as a clock about taking her meals and her rest. Most of the nurses complain that they do not get sleep and rest enough, and are often dull and stupid upon being called to their duties. But Miss Howland is always bright and fresh as a daisy. She says it is because she never allows herself to talk or worry upon retiring, but wills herself to sleep immediately. I believe her only thought or aim is, how best to fit herself for her work, and I predict that she will make an invaluable nurse, if——”

“If what?” inquired the superintendent, with some curiosity, as the woman abruptly ceased.

“If some one doesn’t find her out, marry her, and take her away from us,” responded the nurse, somewhat shortly, adding, “She’s far too bright and pretty, let alone her goodness, not to be appreciated and captured by somebody. The young doctors all make eyes at her, but she never sees them—or pretends she doesn’t.”

“Modest—eh!” laughed her companion, while he also might almost have been accused of “making eyes” at the pretty face that he was watching so intently.

“Yes, almost to prudishness; but wait—the right one will come along one of these days, then puff! away she’ll go, like a bit of thistle-down upon the wings of the wind; it’s the way with all such treasures!”

The superintendent gave vent to a little laugh of amusement at the woman’s quaint prophecy.

“I am glad you like her so well,” he said, and then went his way to other duties, while Salome Howland was, for the time at least, forgotten.