heir hearts. Men in the great shadowy valley murmured like a
child in its sleep when a ray of morning sunshine, stealing through the
curtains, plays upon its face.

And of the many things which Selwyn learned that day, one was that those
ministering angels, those women of limitless spirit and sympathy, have
memories of mute, unspoken gratitude, beside which the proudest triumphs
of the greatest beauties are but the tawdry, tinsel glory of a pantomime
queen.

II.

After the nurse had taken the thermometer from Selwyn and marked his
temperature on a chart which she placed beside him, breakfast was brought
in, and he was propped up with pillows.

'Guid-mornin',' said the Highlander. 'I hope ye're nane the waur o' your
expeerience.'

'Not 'im,' broke in the Cockney, eating his porridge with great relish.
'It done 'im good.'

'I am very well,' said Selwyn haltingly. 'I hope my arrival did not
disturb any of you last night.'

At the sound of his carefully nuanced Bostonian accent there was a
violent dumb-play of smoothing the hair and arranging the coats of
pyjamas, while one Tommy placed a penny in his eye in lieu of a monocle.

'I was 'oping,' said the Cockney, with a solemn wink to the gathering,
'as 'ow Number 26 would be took by a toff, and, blime, if it ain't! It
were gettin' blinkin' lonesome for me with only Jock 'ere and Frenchy
opposite, who ain't bad blokes in their wy, but orful crude for my
likin'.'

'Where did it hit ye?' asked the Scot encouragingly.

'On the head,' said Selwyn, pointing to his bandage.

'Mon, mon, that's apt to be dangerous.'

'Nah then!' cried the Cockney, reaching for his temperature-chart, 'we'll
open the mornink proper with the 'Ymn of 'Ate. In cise you don't know
the piece, m'lud, you can read it off your temperacher-ticket. Steady
now--everybody got a full breath? Gow!'

With great zest all the patients who were able to sit up broke into a
discordant jumble of scales as they followed the course of their
temperatures up and down the chart. Gradually, one by one, they fell out
and resumed their breakfast, until the Scotsman was the only one singing.

'Ye ken,' he said, pausing temporarily and looking at Selwyn, 'yon should
be rendered wi' proper deegnity.' With which explanatory comment he
finished the last six notes, and solemnly replaced the chart on the ledge
behind him, as if it were a copy of Handel's _Messiah_.

The last note had hardly died away when a