sounded with the stethoscope, silently stole
that instrument out of the physician's pocket,
where she knew it lived, and tried his legs
as he had tried her lungs—listening with a
wise countenance to the mysterious
revelations it made.

How pretty it was, if sometimes so sad,
to see the various attitudes and conditions
of the children! One little fellow, convalescent
but still weak, was seated in a chair
mounted on a table, and looked really
pantomimically regal in his small scarlet
wrapper; another, enveloped in a blanket, was
laid across its mother's lap and arm in the
attitude of Henrietta Brown's "Sick Child;"
some sat up in their cots, playing with the
toys spread out on the bed-shelf before
them; others laid down quietly in theirs,
not speaking and not moving, only turning
their eyes longingly to the fairy tree which
was to gladden and relieve their weary
sufferings.

Some of the cases were very interesting,
and I may as well state them now before I
go on to the tree. A child was brought in,
dying from croup. When at the last gasp
they cut into the windpipe, inserted a silver
tube for the child to breathe through, and so
saved its life. I saw the scar; which will
remain ; but the little one itself was fat and
lively, and apparently in perfect health. This
too was "the bronchitis" when I asked
the mother, and the scar was "for a lump
in her throat." One child, whom I saw
running about like a miniature lamplighter,
had been paralysed a few months ago;
another had been cured of an awful outburst
of scrofula; but, perhaps, the most striking
of all the cases, were those of three children
who had been brought in, dying of atrophy.
As they were unable to be fed naturally,
owing to uncontrollable sickness, the
physician ordered beef- tea poultices to be
wrapped round the loins and spine, which at
once revived them; and then began the long
labour of building up what exposure and
privation had nearly destroyed. For between
two and three weeks they were fed
with raw meat, torn by the nurses into the
finest possible filaments, and reduced to a
pulp—very small quantities of which they
gave continually, thus nourishing the little
ones by slow degrees until they were able
to be fed in a more ordinary manner.

But though science can do much, it cannot
do everything; and with all the lives
saved and the successful cases to the good
of the account, there are others which are
hopeless from the beginning. One was
there this afternoon—a beautiful little creature,
so far as mere features went—with a
huge tumour on the top of its head, malignant
it is feared, and almost as large as the
head itself. As yet, the tumour has not
touched the brain, and the child is quite
natural and intelligent; but the sadder phase
has to come, and not even the administration
of the Pantia Ralli ward can do more than
alleviate the suffering that must be, and
gladden the poor little life, so far as it may
be gladdened, for its brief remaining term.

Nothing impressed me more than the
extreme kindness of the young men towards
the children. They were like big elder
brothers among the little ones, and very
unlike the conventional medical student of
comic literature. Perhaps the adoption of
Sister nurses has had something to do with
the improvement, for there are no paid upper
nurses in the hospital, which is served by
the Sisters of St. John's House. King's
College Hospital was the first to adopt Sisters
as the head nurses; and the result has
been most satisfactory. More intelligent
and more conscientious than the paid class,
they manage the patients and children better,
carry out the orders of the doctor more
faithfully, and aid him more effectually by
the accuracy of their own observations.
The name of hospital nurse, once synonymous
with brutality and callous ignorance,
is now a guarantee for the best
kind of sick tending; and who shall say
where the refining influence of that reform
ends? Besides, this self-devotion
gives educated women a work to do that is
as valuable for themselves as for those for
whom it is done. It gives the lonely, duties;
the unemployed, occupation; the solitary,
interests and objects for love and pity.
There is no sickly sentimentalism of any
kind about them, no fantastic excess, no
advanced ritualism, or revivalism, or any
other one-sided manifestation of enthusiasm;
all is done in a quiet self- controlled purposeful
manner; and the work to be done, not
themselves in their mode of doing it, is the
main object which each has before her, and
each tries to carry out to perfection.

As I entered the ward, the Sisters were
decorating the tree, the young assistants
helping; and one or two sturdy little
fellows were made happy by being allowed
to hand up the toys that were to be hung.
Everything was done so deftly, so neatly,
with such good management; no one got
into any other's way; there was no confusion,
no irritation, no contradictory orders,
or opposing wills; everything was so peaceful
and so happy, and the very children,