Every day increased the bitter regret that short-sighted worldliness had blighted one life and kept from others one who had such rare powers of creating all that constitutes a home.

To Roger Mildred had written almost daily, telling him everything.  Her letters were so frank and sincere that they dispelled the uneasiness which first took possession of his mind, and they gradually disarmed him of his hostility to the dying man.  There is a point in noble souls beyond which enmity falters and fails, and he felt that Mildred’s course toward Arnold was like the mercy of God.  He reverenced the girl who like an angel of mercy was bringing hope to a despairing soul.

“Laura,” said old Mr. Arnold to Mrs. Sheppard one evening as she was sitting with him in his library, “this young nurse is a continual surprise to me.”

“What do you mean, papa?”

“Well, she impresses me strangely.  She has come to us as a professional nurse, and yet I have never seen a more perfect gentlewoman.  There is a subtle grace and refinement about her which is indescribable.  No wonder Vinton has been made better by her care.  I wouldn’t mind being sick myself if I could have her about me.  That girl has a history.  How comes she in such a position?”

“I think her position a very exalted one,” said his daughter warmly.  “Think what an infinite blessing and comfort she has been in our household.”

“True, true enough; but I didn’t expect any such person to be sent to us.”

“I am perfectly ready to admit that this young girl is an unusual character, and have no doubt that she has had a history that would account for her influence.  But you are in error if you think that these trained nurses are recruited from the ranks of commonplace women.  Many of them come from as good families as ours, and have all the instincts of a true lady.  They have a noble calling, and I envy them.”

“Well, you know more about it than I do, but I think this Miss Mildred a rare type of woman.  It’s not her beautiful face, for she has a charm, a winsomeness that is hard to define or account for.  She makes me think of some subtle perfume that is even sweeter than the flower from which it is distilled.  Would to God Vinton had met such a girl at first!  How different it all might have been!”

Mrs. Sheppard left the room so hastily as to excite her father’s surprise.

One day Vinton said to Mildred, “How can I be truly forgiven unless I forgive?  I now see that I have wronged God’s love even more than my mother has wronged me, and in my deep gratitude from the consciousness of God’s forgiveness I would like to forgive her and be reconciled before I die.  To my brother I will send a brief message—­I can’t see him again, for the ordeal would be too painful.  As for my father, I have long ceased to cherish enmity against him.  He, like myself, is, in a certain sense, a victim of our family pride.”