Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/165

 predominated. It was certainly very kind and sweet of this unknown woman to take an interest in her and to send her these lovely roses. Their perfume, laden with suggestions of country gardens, filled the room. The nurse had put them into water, and was opening the package which had accompanied them. It contained five smaller parcels, each carefully wrapped, and bearing the name of a well-known Broadway merchant. She untied these, in her quiet, capable way, and her patient looked on with the interest which small things excite during convalescence.

The first package contained an elegant little cardcase with silver trimmings. In the second there was a silver stamp-box. The third held a pair of manicure scissors with gold handles. From the fourth box the amused nurse drew a little black silk purse with silver mountings, and an investigation of the contents of the last package disclosed an ordinary crochet needle.

Nurse and patient smiled at each other irrepressibly,but Miss Herrick was no less touched than amused by this odd collection of gifts.

"It looks precisely," she said, "as if some