Moreover, the gift of nursing was not hers. Although in a threatening case of scarlet fever she could be the first to offer herself as nurse, with entire unconcern about the infection; although she shared with others the watch beside Fanny’s dying bed, and later on the watch beside Mr. Hamilton’s; yet she repeatedly speaks of herself as no nurse, and alludes to her own want of experience. Experience no doubt she might have had, before the age of fifty, had her natural bent lain at all in the direction of nursing; but the necessary gifts were not hers. She had not the reposeful air, the placid voice and manner, above all, the ready tact, which for good nursing are essential. Self-indulgence, laziness, cowardliness were unknown factors in her existence, and could never have held her back; but here too there was probably an innate sense of lack of power; and here too she never through life took to the occupation, ‘as to the manner born.’ It is noticeable also that, frequently as she would offer her services in times of illness, these offers were seldom accepted. Others doubtless knew as well as she knew it herself that nursing was not in her line.