Seeing it, Katie chattered on, against time, about nothing; foolish talk,
heartless talk, it might even seem, to be pouring out to a girl who felt
there was no place for her in life. But it was nonsense carried by
tenderness. Nonsense which made for kinship. It reached. Several times
the girl who thought she must kill herself was not far from a smile and
at last there was a tear on the long lashes.

"So I'm going to undress you," Katie unfolded her plan, encouraged by the
tear, "and then let's just see what hot water can do about it. And maybe
a little rub. I used to rub my mother's spine. She said life always
seemed worth living after I had done that." She patted the hand she held
ever so lightly as she said: "How happy I would be if I could make you
feel that way about it, too. Then I've a dear room to take you into, all
soft grays and greens, and oh, such a good bed! Why you know you're
tired! That's what's the matter with you, and you're just too tired to
know what's the matter."

The girl nodded, tears upon her cheeks, looking like a child that has
had a cruel time and needs to be comforted.

Katie's voice was lower, different, as she went on: "Then after I've
brushed your hair and done all those 'comfy' things I'm going to put you
in a certain, a very special gown I have. It was made by the nuns in a
convent in Southern France. As they worked upon it they sat in a garden
on a hillside. They thought serene thoughts, those nuns. You see I know
them, lived with them. I don't know, one has odd fancies sometimes, and
it always seemed to me that something of the peace of things there was
absorbed in that wonderful bit of linen. It seems far away from things
that hurt and harm. Almost as if it might draw back things that had
gone. I was going to keep it--" Katie's eyes deepened, there was a