Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/277

Rh self in some way on the shrine of the country's need seemed to prove one to be next door to a traitor—in fact worse. It seems ungracious, even at this distance of time, to call in question either the motives or the results of this great outburst on the part of the women; but no one who was familiar, in even a small degree, with the practical results in many of our hospitals of the average headlong enthusiasm of the average woman, will deny that in very many instances it could have been advantageously dispensed with.

The meek and satirical gratitude of the soldier who, being inquired of by one of these restless benevolences, if she should comb his hair for him, replied: "Thank you, ma'am, you can if you want to; there 's nineteen ladies has done it already to-day," pointed a moral which was too generally overlooked.

Some dim suspicions as to the common sense of their work had more than once crossed the minds of both Sarah Lincoln and Netty Larned. They were clear-headed, energetic women, without a trace of sentimentalism about them. It had appeared to them in the outset that there was a grand field of work in the Menthaven Hospital, and that it was clearly the duty of the Menthaven women to take hold of it. Being, as I say, clear-headed, they had too distinct a consciousness of their incapacity as nurses, to undertake ward work; in fact, when they came to discuss seriously what they could do,