He waited before the open door.
Nella was a born chatterer, but she had her good qualities, and in an emergency she was silent and skilful.
"Leave it to me," she said.

"He will need no surgeon." In her room she had a small store of simple remedies, sweet oil, a pot of balsam, old linen carefully rolled up in little bundles, a precious ointment made from the fat of vipers, which was a marvellous cure for rheumatism in the joints, some syrup of poppies in a stumpy phial, a box of powdered iris root, and another of saffron.

She took the sweet oil, the balsam, and some linen.

She also took a small pair of scissors which were among her most precious possessions.

She threw her large black kerchief over her head and pinned it together under her chin.
When she came back to Marietta's room, her mistress was wrapped in a dark mantle that covered hear thin white dress entirely, and one corner of it was drawn up over her head so as to hide her hair and almost all her face.