The patient has pain,--a tender spine, for example; she is urged to give it rest.

She cannot read; the self-constituted nurse reads to her.

At last light hurts her eyes; the mother or sister remains shut up with her all day in a darkened room.

A draught of air is supposed to do harm, and the doors and windows are closed, and the ingenuity of kindness is taxed to imagine new sources of like trouble, until at last, as I have seen more than once, the window-cracks are stuffed with cotton, the chimney is stopped, and even the keyhole guarded.

It is easy to see where this all leads to: the nurse falls ill, and a new victim is found.