please, for fear she'd stayed too long,--while I stay on the rest of the
night? _Did his mother hate me!"_

Stealthily as an assassin she crept around the corner of the
rocking-chair and grabbed Zillah Forsyth by her astonished linen
shoulder.

"Did his mother hate me?" she persisted mockingly. "Did his mother hate
me? Well rather! Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't
hate us? Is there any woman from here to Kamchatka who doesn't look upon
a trained nurse as her natural born enemy? I don't blame 'em!" she added
chokingly. "Look at the impudent jobs we get sent out on! Quarantined
upstairs for weeks at a time with their inflammable, diphtheritic
bridegrooms--while they sit down stairs--brooding over their wedding
teaspoons! Hiked off indefinitely to Atlantic City with their gouty
bachelor uncles! Hearing their own innocent little sisters'
blood-curdling deathbed deliriums! Snatching their own new-born babies
away from their breasts and showing them, virgin-handed, how to nurse
them better! The impudence of it, I say! The disgusting, confounded
impudence! Doing things perfectly--flippantly--_right_--for twenty-five
dollars a week--and washing--that all the achin' love in the world don't
know how to do right--just for love!"

Furiously she began to jerk her victim's shoulder. "I tell you it's
awful, Zillah Forsyth!" she insisted. "I tell you I just won't stand
it!"

With muscles like steel wire Zillah Forsyth scrambled to her feet, and
pushed Rae Malgregor back against the bureau.