I have alluded to those of health and happiness.  We have all known the first wilfully thrown away by needless attendance on such sick friends as would have been equally well taken care of had servants or hired nurses shared in the otherwise overpowering labour.  Often is this labour found to incapacitate the nurse-tending friend for fulfilling towards the convalescent those offices in which no menial could supply her place —­such as the cheering of the drooping spirit, the selection and patient perusal of amusing books, an animated, amusing companionship in their walks and drives, the humouring of their sick fancy—­a sickness that often increases as that of the body decreases.  For all these trying duties, during the often long and always painfully tedious period of convalescence, the nightly watcher of the sick-bed has, it is most likely, unfitted herself.  The affection and devotion which were useless and unheeded during days and nights of stupor and delirium have probably by this time worn out the weak body which they have been exciting to efforts beyond its strength, so that it is now incapable of more useful demonstrations of attachment.  Far be it from me to depreciate that fond, devoted watching of love, which is sometimes even a compensation to the invalid for the sufferings of sickness, at periods, too, when hired attendance could not be tolerated.  Here woman’s love and devotion are often brightly shown.  The natural impulses of her heart lead her to trample under foot all consideration of personal danger, fatigue, or weakness, when the need of her loved ones demands her exertions.

This, however, is comparatively easy; it is only following the instincts of her loving nature never to leave the sick room, where all her anxiety, all her hopes and fears are centred,—­never to breathe the fresh air of heaven,—­never to mingle in the social circle,—­never to rest the weary limbs, or close the languid eye.  The excitement of love and anxiety makes all this easy as long as the anxiety itself lasts:  but when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and unselfishness is put to the test.

Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long bodily exhaustion.  Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless, or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation.  Those who have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself.  How deeply she often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.