Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/227

Rh to reason. Poor Dick Westmore watched over her as if she were a baby; but perhaps Mr. Amherst, who must have been used to such a different type of woman, doesn’t realize.… and then he’s so little here.…” The drop was lit up by a smile that seemed to make it more impenetrable. “As an old friend I can’t help telling you how much I hope she is to have you with her for a long time—a long, long time.”

Miss Brent bent her head in slight acknowledgment of the tribute. “Oh, soon she will not need any care"

“My dear Miss Brent, she will always need it!” Mrs. Ansell made a movement inviting the young girl to share the bench from which, at the latter’s approach, she had risen. “But perhaps there is not enough in such a life to satisfy your professional energies.”

She seated herself, and after an imperceptible pause Justine sank into the seat beside her. “I am very glad, just now, to give my energies a holiday,” she said, leaning back with a little sigh of retrospective weariness.

“You are tired too? Bessy wrote me you had been quite used up by a trying case after we saw you at Hanaford.”

I\Iiss Brent smiled. “When a nurse is ﬁt for work she calls a trying case a ‘beautiful’ one.”

“But meanwhile—?” Mrs. Ansell shone on her with elder-sisterly solicitude. “Meanwhile, why not [ 211 ]