boomed
out above the sound of the small organ. Ed had been a good brother to
him; he had been a good son.

Max's vagrant mind wandered away from the service to the picture of his
mother over his brother's littered desk, to the Street, to K., to the
girl who had refused to marry him because she did not trust him, to
Carlotta last of all. He turned a little and ran his eyes along the line
of nurses.

Ah, there she was. As if she were conscious of his scrutiny, she lifted
her head and glanced toward him. Swift color flooded her face.

The nurses sang:--

"O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day."

The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
heavy throat shook with earnestness.

The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and
weary with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.

The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her
a silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror.
But the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a
great box of roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From a
neighbor."

Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
afternoon.

Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the
corridor.

"Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.

"Merry Christmas!" she said. "You see!"--she glanced down to the rose
she wore. "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."

"But they were for you!"

"They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
chance to enjoy them."

Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty
speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died
before her frank glance.

There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her
that he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without
her; that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy
man to his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire
politely whether she had had her Christmas dinner.

Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.

"What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
friends?"

"Damn discipline!" said the pride of the staff.

Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Somethi