She had been at first
disposed to keep Kitty out of the sick-chamber, as no place for a girl,
but she soon abandoned that position, for Kitty was not the girl ever to
think of impropriety. She was primitive and she had rather a before-the-
flood nature, but she had not the faintest vulgar strain in her. Her
mind was essentially pure; nothing material in her had been awakened.
Her greatest joy was to do the many things for the patient which a nurse
must do--prepare his food, give him drink, adjust his pillows, bathe his
face and hands, take his temperature; and on his part he tried hard to
disguise from her the apprehension he felt, and to avoid any hint by word
or look that he saw anything save the actions of a kind heart. True, her
views as to what was proper and improper might possibly be on a different
plane from his own. For instance, he had seen girls of her station in
the West kiss young men freely--men whom they had no thought of marrying;
and that was not the custom of his own class in his home-country.
As he got well slowly, and life opened out before him again, he felt he
had to pursue a new course, and in that course he must take account of
Kitty Tynan, though he could not decide how. He had a deep confidence in
the Young Doctor, in his judgment and his character; and it was almost
inevitable that he should tell his life-story to the man whose skill had
saved him from death in a strange land, with all undone he wanted to do
ere he returned to a land which was not strange.
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