illness, that the family is glad to see you when you come. You
have come to help them, to stay with them, to comfort them by your
presence, by your knowledge, by your experience. They have needed
you, have sent for you, and are to pay you for your time. There is
a general sense of relief when you are once fairly installed in
your place by the bedside, yet you are a stranger. Your friend,
the doctor, has told them what a treasure you are. Mrs. This and
Mr. That have perhaps let them know how invaluable you were when
at their houses; but yet they must look at you a little, they must
note if you make a pleasant impression on the invalid, if you are
as skillful here as you were somewhere else, if you look with
scorn on the plain furniture, or how much you will be displeased
that the bath-room is at the other end of the house. They do not
feel exactly critical: they are too tired or too anxious for that;
but still, unless everyone is too exhausted from watching to do
anything but thankfully surrender everything to you, you will be
pretty closely looked after at first.

You must look for some espionage; and it is only right that you
should be subjected to it. If _your_ mother was lying very
sick, and some stranger, having knowledge and strength superior to
your own, had to come and care for her, would you not feel that
though you were glad to see her, glad she would give your mother
the benefit of her superior skill, yet you would wish to consider
her a little, to note when she did thus and so; or if she did
something you did not understand, could you refrain from asking
her why she did it?

Be patient, therefore, with the suggestions of the family, after
all, though you know the disease and the probable course it will