Her Last Stake, Chapters I-V [pp. 815-839]

HER LAST STAKE.
service of the sick and dying is, without doubt, primarily the
healing of the body; but there is surely with them also an underlying apostolate of ministration to souls. Among the poor
this work is ostensible, almost easy, we would say. With patients of the upper class it is hardly less needful, and requires
far more tact, delicacy, and courage for its exercise. If all
were known, there have been not a few conversions from heresy
as well as those from indifference and sin, wrought by the ministrations of a "nursing sister"; and even those who seem to
reap but little benefit from the spiritual side of their ministration, are loud in praise of its temporal advantages.
The second patient whom Sister Gabrielle had been called
to tend was a big, light-hearted, muscular young Englishman
who, when his time of convalescence began, seemed to live in a
perpetual state of half-amused annoyance at the untoward illness which, for the first time in his cheery, irresponsible life,
had come upon him. " Queer, isn't it? to feel so weak," he
would ejaculate, lifting a feeble hand and arm into the air and
pinching its softened muscles amazedly, "How much longer
is this sort of thing going to last?"
"Oh! you will soon be sitting up by the fire if you go on
as you are doing," the sister would assure him.
"Yes, and then begin to crawl out-of-doors, wrapped up in
shawls, like all the rest of the poor creatures Minnie and I used
to laugh at!" he continued. "The idea of my being laid by
the heels in this wretched place, where three-quarters of the
people are consumptives, and the fourth Monte Carloites!"
"What, do you mean gamblers?" ejaculated Sister Gabrielle
with awe. "Are there any of those here? Not in this hotel,
surely?"
"Well-I should think you might tell that better than most!"
"I?"
"Considering that you have been nursing one of them-have
you not?"
"You don't mean-" and then all at once a light broke upon her bewildered brain, and she understood the meaning of
her perplexities.
"That lady opposite, whom you nursed; she is one of the
regular old stagers-frequenters of'the tables,' you know."
"I did not know it. How did you?"
"They told me down-stairs-the landlord, I think. I declare
I should like to make her acquaintance, and get her'to teach
me the ins and outs of these wonderful'systems' they talk so
1894.]
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