“I do love a track!” said Mrs. Jervis, pensively.  “That’s why I don’t like these buildings so well as them others, Em’ly.  Here you never get no tracks; and there, what with one person and another, there was a new one most weeks.  But”—­her voice dropped, and she looked timidly first at her friend, and then at Marcella—­“she isn’t a Christian, Nurse.  Isn’t it sad?”

Mrs. Burton, a woman of a rich mahogany complexion, with a black “front,” and a mouth which turned down decisively at the corners, looked up from her embroidery with severe composure.

“No, Nurse, I’m not a Christian,” she said in the tone of one stating a disagreeable fact for which they are noways responsible.  “My brother is—­and my sisters—­real good Christian people.  One of my sisters married a gentleman up in Wales.  She ‘as two servants, an’ fam’ly prayers reg’lar.  But I’ve never felt no ‘call,’ and I tell ’em I can’t purtend.  An’ Mrs. Jervis here, she don’t seem to make me see it no different.”

She held her head erect, however, as though the unusually high sense of probity involved, was, after all, some consolation.  Mrs. Jervis looked at her with pathetic eyes.  But Emily coloured hotly.  Emily was a churchwoman.

“Of course you’re a Christian, Mrs. Burton,” she said indignantly.  “What she means, Nurse, is she isn’t a ‘member’ of any chapel, like mother.  But she’s been baptised and confirmed, for I asked her.  And of course she’s a Christian.”

“Em’ly!” said Mrs. Jervis, with energy.

Emily looked round trembling.  The delicate invalid was sitting bolt upright, her eyes sparkling, a spot of red on either hollow cheek.  The glances of the two women crossed; there seemed to be a mute struggle between them.  Then Emily laid down her iron, stepped quickly across to her mother, and kneeling beside her, threw her arms around her.

“Have it your own way, mother,” she said, while her lip quivered; “I wasn’t a-goin’ to cross you.”

Mrs. Jervis laid her waxen cheek against her daughter’s tangle of brown hair with a faint smile, while her breathing, which had grown quick and panting, gradually subsided.  Emily looked up at Marcella with a terrified self-reproach.  They all knew that any sudden excitement might kill out the struggling flame of life.

“You ought to rest a little, Mrs. Jervis,” said Marcella, with gentle authority.  “You know the dressing must tire you, though you won’t confess it.  Let me put you comfortable.  There; aren’t the pillows easier so?  Now rest—­and good-bye.”

But Mrs. Jervis held her, while Emily slipped away.

“I shall rest soon,” she said significantly.  “An’ it hurts me when Emily talks like that.  It’s the only thing that ever comes atween us.  She thinks o’ forms an’ ceremonies; an’ I think o’ grace.”

Her old woman’s eyes, so clear and vivid under the blanched brow, searched Marcella’s face for sympathy.  But Marcella stood, shy and wondering in the presence of words and emotions she understood so little.  So narrow a life, in these poor rooms, under these crippling conditions of disease!—­and all this preoccupation with, this passion over, the things not of the flesh, the thwarted, cabined flesh, but of the spirit—­wonderful!