I slept longer than I had meant to do, the next morning; but I
rose with a happy feeling of being in my place; where I wanted
to be. That is, to be sure, not always the criterion by which
to know the place where one ought to be; yet where it is a
qualification it is also in some sense a token. The ministry
of the hours preceding swept over me while I was dressing,
with something of the grand swell and cadence of the notes of
a great organ; grand and solemn and sweet. I entered the ward,
ready for the day's work, with a glad readiness.
So I felt, as I stepped in and went down the space between the
rows of beds. Miss Yates nodded to me.
"Here you are!" she said. "Fresh as the morning. Well I don't
know why we shouldn't have pleasant things in such a place as
this, if we can get them; there's enough that ain't pleasant,
and folks forget there is anything else in the world. Now
you'll be better than breakfast, to some of them; and here's
breakfast, my dear. You know how to manage that."
I knew very well how to manage that; and I knew too, as I went
on with my ministrations, that Miss Yates was not altogether
wrong. My ministry did give pleasure; and I could not help
enjoying the knowledge. This was not the enjoyment of
flattering crowds, waiting round me with homage in their eyes
and on their tongues. I had known that too, and felt the
foolish flutter of gratified vanity for a moment, to be
ashamed of it the next. This was the brightening eye, the
relaxing lip, the tone of gratification, from those whose days
and hours were a weary struggle with pain and disease; to
bring a moment's refreshment to them was a great joy, which
gives me no shame now in the remembrance. Even if it was only
the refreshment of memory and fancy, that was something; and I
gave thanks in my heart, as I went from one sufferer to
another, that I had been made pleasant to look at. Preston
himself smiled at me this morning, which I thought a great
gain.
"Well, you do know how to sing!" he said softly, as I was
giving him his tea and toast.
"I am glad you think so."
"Think so! Why, Daisy, positively I was inclined to bless
gunpowder for the minute, for having brought me here. Now if
you would only sing something else - Don't you know anything
from Norma, or II Trovatore?"
"They would be rather out of place here."
"Not a bit of it. Create a soul under the ribs - Well, this is
vile tea."
"Hush, Preston; you know the tea is good, like everything else
here."