meaningless and useless, for its own purpose. And the way it took,
quickly enough, with poor Barbara was that she became the only thing in
which she could be of any service in the town--namely, a nurse.

It was a sad time and a hard struggle while the shame lasted, almost
enough to kill her; and after that, she never thought of returning to
the Heimdal mountains again.

But things were to be still harder.

The various social claims, which an age of progress increasingly lays
upon the lady of the house in the upper classes of society, asserted
themselves here in the town by an ever increasing demand for nurses.

"The reason," as Dr. Schneibel explained, "was simply a law of
Nature--you can't be a milch-cow and an intelligent human being at the
same time. The renovation of blood and nerves must be artificially
conveyed from that class of society which stands nearer to Nature."

And now the thing was to find an extra-healthy, thoroughly strong nurse
for Consul-General Veyergang's two delicate, newly-arrived, little ones.

Dr. Schneibel had very thoughtfully kept a nurse in reserve for Mrs.
Veyergang--"a really remarkable specimen of the original healthiness in
the common stock. One might say--h'm, h'm--that if Mrs. Veyergang could
not get to the mountains, the mountains were so courteous as to come to
her. The girl still had an odour of the cowshed about her perhaps; but
when all's said and done, that was only a stronger assurance of
originality. And _that_ is an important factor in our day, madam, when
milk is adulterated even from the very cows themselves.--Quite young,