derelictions. You told me you were perfectly delighted with this nurse
--that she had a thousand perfections and only one fault: you found you
never could depend on her wrapping Johnny up half sufficiently while he
waited in a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed. You filled
up the duplicate of this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the
hand of the nurse. How did you answer this question--'Was the nurse at
any time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the
patient's taking cold?' Come--everything is decided by a bet here in
California: ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered that
question." She said, "I didn't; _I left it blank!_" "Just so--you have
told a _silent_ lie; you have left it to be inferred that you had no
fault to find in that matter." She said, "Oh, was that a lie? And _how_
could I mention her one single fault, and she is so good?--It would have
been cruel." I said, "One ought always to lie, when one can do good by
it; your impulse was right, but your judgment was crude; this comes of
unintelligent practice. Now observe the results of this inexpert
deflection of yours. You know Mr. Jones's Willie is lying very low with
scarlet-fever; well, your recommendation was so enthusiastic that that
girl is there nursing him, and the worn-out family have all been
trustingly sound asleep for the last fourteen hours, leaving their
darling with full confidence in those fatal hands, because you, like
young George Washington, have a reputa--However, if you are not going to
have anything to do, I will come around to-morrow and we'll attend the
funeral together, for, of course, you'll naturally feel a peculiar
interest in Willie's case--as personal a one, in fact, as the
undertaker."

But that was not all lost. Before I was half-way through she was in a
carriage and making thirty miles an hour toward the Jones mansion to
save what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly