When Mildred returned to England, she found amongst her correspondence a prospectus of the new hospital and nursing home, with a note from Sister Agnes, asking her to visit the little colony and hospital on her return. Mildred seemed to see in all this the hand of Providence pointing her future course. Was it not strange that her meeting with Elsworth, and the history of his work, should have aroused her interest in, and awakened a desire to promote a similar scheme on a large scale, and immediately on her return to find that the same idea had occurred to her good friend, Sister Agnes? The prospectus declared that the new hospital scheme had proved perfectly feasible, all that was wanting was the necessary money to develop and extend it. For this object a drawing-room meeting was to be held in Kensington Gore in a few days, and Sister Agnes earnestly besought her presence. Mildred was not long in finding her way down to the East End, and assuring her friends at Nightingale Home of her interest in the good work they had so well begun. She paid such frequent visits that at last Aunt Janet jokingly remarked that she fully expected soon to see her don the habit of a sisterhood, unless perchance anybody should come along to forbid the sacrifice.
As she said this, she held up a letter which she had received that morning from Elsworth, announcing his intention to return at once to England, inasmuch as the news had reached him from his men of business, that his father, Major Elsworth, was dead, he having been seized with a fit of apoplexy while engaged at a meeting of the Theosophical Society of Benares.
When Elsworth received the news of his father's death, he felt that he could no longer remain in Spain. Apart from the necessity of visiting England on business, he yearned to be nearer his newly found friends. Poor fellow, he felt the need of "congenial sympathy"--at least, so he said to himself. The death of his father and the thoughts of Mildred (and Aunt Janet) combined to make him think that gipsies and cholera patients did not completely fill the void in his heart. Aunt Janet had corresponded with him, and spoke in such terms of Mildred that he would have been foolish not to take encouragement from her tone and follow up his advantage. Aunt Janet was evidently developing into a match-maker. She was, in fact, so impressed with Elsworth that, highly as she valued Mildred, she did not consider her a whit too good for such a man. A girl's women-folk usually think no man is good enough to marry her. Very likely they are right; still, there are some Elsworths yet in the world.