u, Marraine?"

"What would you wish for, Pollykins?" asked Marraine, softly.

"Oh, lots of things!" said Polly, perching in her lap. "First--first of
all, I wish that I could keep you here forever and forever, darling
Marraine!"

"Well, you have me for six weeks every summer," laughed Marraine.

"But that isn't forever and forever," sighed Polly. "And mamma and dad and
grandmamma and everybody else want you, too."

"Are you sure of that?" asked the lady, kissing the upturned face.

"Oh, very sure!" replied Polly, positively. "They say it's all nonsense
for you to go to the hospital and take care of sick people. It's--it's
something--I don't remember what."

"Stubborn pride?" suggested Marraine, with a merry sparkle in her eyes.

"Yes," said Polly, "that's just what grandmamma said. And stubborn pride
is something bad; isn't it, Marraine?"

"Well, yes, it is," agreed Marraine,--"when it _is_ stubborn pride,
Pollykins. But when one has empty hands and empty purse and--well, an
empty life, too, Pollykins, it is not stubborn pride to try to fill them
with work and care and pity and help."

"And that is what you do at the hospital, Marraine?"

"It is what I try to do, Pollykins. When my dear father died, and I found
all his money gone, this beautiful home of yours opened its doors wide for
me; dad, mamma, grandma, everybody begged me to come here. But--but it
wasn't my real home or my real place."

"Oh, wasn't it, Marraine?" said Polly, sadly.

"No, dear. In our real home, our real place, God gives us work to
do,--some work, even though it be only to bless and love. But there was no
work for me here; and so I looked around, Pollykins, for my work and my
place. If I had been very, _very_ good, I might have folded my butterfly
wings under a veil and habit, and been a nice little nun, like Sister
Claudine."

"Oh, I wouldn't have liked that at all!" said Polly, with a shiver.

"I'm afraid I wouldn't either," was the laughing answer. "Still, it's a
lovely, useful, beautiful life, little girl. And the next--the very
next--best place and best work seemed to me the hospital, with the white
gown and cap I can put off when I please; with sickness and sorrow and
suffering to soothe and help; with little children holding out their arms
to me, and old people calling to me in their pain, and dying eyes turning
to me for hope and help. So I am nurse in a hospital, and out of it, too,
when there is need. And it's not for st