In the white face under the queer, deep-fringed
cap she saw nothing of the morning's traveller. The newcomer was
communicative. She was a nurse by profession, she said; had come to the
Transvaal, hearing that good nurses were needed there. She had not yet
found work. The landlady did not perhaps know whether there would be any
for her in that town?
The landlady put down her knitting and smote her fat hands together.
If it wasn't the very finger of God's providence, as though you saw it
hanging out of the sky, she said. Here was a lady ill and needing a new
nurse that very day, and not able to get one to her mind, and now--well, if
it wasn't enough to convert all the Atheists and Freethinkers in the
Transvaal, she didn't know!
Then the landlady proceeded to detail facts.
"I'm sure you will suit her," she added; "you're just the kind. She has
heaps of money to pay you with; has everything that money can buy. And I
got a letter with a check in it for fifty pounds the other day from some
one, who says I'm to spend it for her, and not to let her know. She is
asleep now, but I'll take you in to look at her."
The landlady opened the door of the next room, and Gregory followed her. A
table stood near the bed, and a lamp burning low stood on it; the bed was a
great four-poster with white curtains, and the quilt was of rich crimson
satin.
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