The Angel of Mercy.

May. The day the housemaid had to leave because her husband ‘didn't want her to work no more’ and, to consolidate his authority, had punched her so hard in the neck that she had a great red swelling under ear, the cook became a kind of infallible being,—an angel of mercy. Nothing was too much for her. Stairs were rays page 111 of light up which she floated. She wore her cap differently: it gave her the air of a hospital nurse. Her voice changed. She suggested puddings as though they were compresses: whiting, because they were so ‘delicate and harmless.’ Trust me! Lean on me! There is nothing I cannot do! was her attitude. Every time she left me, she left me for her mysterious reasons—to lay out the body again and again—to change the stiffened hand—to pull the paper frill over the ominous spot appearing.