kitchen. Such a nurse I have known to insist on
a patient with the yellow jaundice taking a rich,
thick, chrome-coloured custard, as the best
restorative for the disorganised system. Such a
nurse will open the curtains, draw up the
blinds, and throw wide the windows when a
German band or a Punch's show is playing
underneath, to relieve the tedium of a patient
groaning and flushing under congestion of the
brain; such a nurse has, before now, pressed wine
and brandy on a patient in the agonies of
internal inflammation; and has engaged him in
a lively chat, as the finest remedy for a nervous
headache. This is the nurse who despises
doctors, and puts her trust in old women and the
butcher; who shudders at grey-powder and
prefers herb tea; who always thinks you are being
brought too low, even when your pulse is mad
with fever. This nurse is the dearest creature
in the world for the drawing-room days of life.
Round, bright-eyed, cheery, voluble, warm-
hearted, she is the delight of the house, and the
joliiest companion in the world: but I pray that
none but my critics or my enemies may ever
know her when she is under the belief that she is
nursing to perfection. She is, herself, blessed
with a large volume of life and a strong nervous
organisation, with big lungs, a big heart, and a
big, but coarsely-textured brain. She is a
treasure to the healthy world: I cannot repeat this
too often; for I really love her, such a fine
noble domestic elephant as it is! But, bright-
eyed treasure, stay down in the drawing-room,
or rampage about the hay-field, and, when I am
ill, never put so much as the tip of that
beloved blunt nose inside the lintel of my
door!

And take your sister with you: your sister
is a Muff, and Muffs are as objectionable as
elephants, when the knocker is tied up. Muff,
too, is a precious creature for the healthy
hours; a tender, clinging, loving soul, full of
sensibility and kindness: an universal favourite,
who, every one declares, must make one
of the best of nurses. Try her, my friend;
try her for one week, and surely at the end of
it you will give up the ghost— or her. Muff's
theory of nursing is comprised in incessant
personal attention, and incessant personal
caresses. When you are fainting for air, Muff
will hang over you, between you and the
window, stifling you with her soft warm hands
upon your forehead. Muff is always praising
your patience, your firmness, your gentleness;
exaggerating your sufferings to your face, and
making a far mightier fuss about every little
occurrence, than even you think, with all your
sick selfishness, is warranted by the
circumstances. It would take a strong man to live
through a month of Muff's bedside practice.
She is rarely still, though I am bound to say
she is creepy gentleness itself, and does
everything in whispers. She softly tells you that
your head is too low when it is rather too
high, and she drags in another pillow, which
she pushes and pats under you in the most
irritating manner; or, just as you have found
out a comfortable corner in the bolster, which
you have pulled shockingly awry and feebly
manipulated into symmetry with your person,
Muff tenderly insists that it is uncomfortable,
kisses you lovingly, drags up your head, and
pushes back the bolster to its mathematical
precision of place. She whispers in your ear till
she sends you mad; and pets you till you would
beat her, if she were anybody else, and you
were strong enough. " Poor fellow!" whispers
Muff— you are half asleep, in a quiet
doze, and in a wonderfully easy position, for
her patient— "poor fellow, it is getting time
for your nasty medicine; so don't go to sleep,
there's a dear." It wants twenty minutes of
the time, and you have not really slept for
weeks: but you were just then so tranquil and
so comfortable! Muff would be bitterly hurt if
told that she is worse than useless in a
sickroom. Indeed, it is the most aggravating
circumstance in her case, that you love her with all
your heart, and, to complain (one of the invalid's
greatest comforts), would be almost next to
murdering her.

Then there is the conscientious nurse, hard
and practical: the blind machine which goes
on turning its own handle according to the
tune set for it by the doctor. Grimbones cannot
judge for herself. She can obey orders, can
Grimbones, and act faithfully, and with punctuality
and precision; but she has no originality,
and must work according to the pattern of a
master. If the doctor says that certain medicines
— sleeping draughts, for instance— are to be
given every three hours, and forgets to add "until
they take effect," Grimboues, ruthless as death,
sits gauntly staring at the clock, and wakes
you up at that exact minute your draught is
due, although you were in a sweet and dreamless
sleep, which was the very effect the medicine
was intended to produce. But Grimbones
has always held that obedience is the cardinal
virtue. There are moral pedantries in nursing
as well as anything else. Grimbones is a family
pedant; almost invariably with square shoulders,
a flat back, and bony hands, who dresses in
black made skimp and tight, and usually loves
a merino neck-shawl pinned primly to her waist,
and a half-mourning— always looking like a half-
dirty— cap. Grimbones is a good woman, but
an awful nurse; a gaunt being to hover round
a sick man's helpless bed. She is usually your
mother-in-law. Therefore give Grimbones the
keys of the storeroom and the wine-cellar, with
perfect confidence; give her also dominion over
your servants; but tell her gratefully, kindly
(for Mercy's sake don't affront her!), that
you would much rather she would not nurse
you.

Escape, if you can, from the watching nurse,
whose eye is never off you, who won't let you turn
or lift your arm, or your leg, or even wink, without
her interference; who bores you every five
minutes by asking " what you would like now?"
who can never let well alone, and has the
profoundest contempt for the healing powers
of nature; who thinks that constitutions are