Elizabeth G. Jordan

“ Your letters and your love have made me what I am. In every crisis of my life you have been with me; I could not have met them without you. I have come to you always, and you have never failed me. How can I live on alone?"
The sick woman looked at her with wet eyes. "Listen to me, my little girl," she said. "This may not be so great a separation as you think. The memory of me will always be with you, and you know whether I shall forget you when I am with God. You know how I would have you act. ”

“ She ought to have some strong human interest in her life."
Dr. Lincoln was fond as well as proud of his brilliant pupil.
Dr. Van Nest's heart felt no such need as she rang the convent bell on the afternoon of her arrival in the city of her girlhood. She looked up lovingly at the cold, gray walls, and a film came over the eyes usually keen and steady rather than soft. The familiar little portress of years ago opened the door, and her shy exclamation of recognition and delight was music to the doctor's ears. ”

“ She pushed resolutely into her mental background the memory of the night's experience. This was the close of the nineteenth century, and she was a fin de siècle product. Visions could hardly be taken more seriously than to gather from them such comfort as they might yield. She smiled and sighed at the same time as she entered her library at two that afternoon. She had to go to her friend's house at three to perform the operation, but in the interval she would look in the old desk that held the accumulated notes of years, and see what her note-book said. ”

“ The portress hesitated. "I am sure you may see her, Miss Van Nest—Doctor Van Nest, I mean. You see, we know all about you, even here, and we rejoice in your success. But you must be prepared for some change in Sister Estelle. She—she has not been well."
Dr. Van Nest grew a little indignant. "Why was I not informed?" she asked, quickly. The portress looked at her with a smile which deprecated the unconsciously assumed professional manner. ”

“ She must do it, and do it well. It was the closing act of her school life, and she ought to leave as pleasant a memory behind her as she took away. In her heart she knew she would. She usually did things well—this calm, self-contained pupil of whom the nuns expected so much. Then, too, she reflected, Sister Estelle would be in the wings with her, and Sister Estelle would help her if she faltered. Dear Sister Estelle, who had never failed her from the day she had been brought to the convent, a little child, and given to the sweet-faced nun as a special charge. ”

“ There is nothing I can do for you in the big world outside, but I can think of you and pray for you here every day. In the times you need me you must come to me. They will be many at first, for the world will have unpleasant surprises for you, and you will turn to me, I know—my little one, my little girl. ”

“ When she returned to her own country and established herself in New York, her fame had preceded her. Dr. Elizabeth Van Nest promptly took a place in the front rank of her profession, and enhanced the reputation already acquired by a series of brilliant operations. One of these was performed in Chicago, and while the newspapers were still full of the marvel of it, for the case was an unusual one and the patient a woman of national fame, the surgeon slipped away, leaving no address except in the patient's home. ”

“ The same high polish shone on the waxed floor; the same chairs stood at precisely the same angles in the same corners; the same religious pictures hung on the walls; the same wax flowers stood on the same small table. There was the desk which the child Elizabeth Van Nest used to approach shaking in her little shoes, to be reprimanded for some childish mistake by the nun who sat there. Here at last there was a change. The nun was there no more. Dr. Van Nest recalled a line in one of Sister Estelle's letters, sent to her in Paris,
"Our dear Sister Raymond has found her reward." ”

“ She was graduated with honors which would have turned the head of one not so well poised. She did hospital work in Chicago for two years, and then went abroad for four more of supplementary training among the horrors of hospitals in great European cities. ”