The ward sat up, remembered that it was not the Sabbath, smiled across
from bed to bed.

The probationer, whose name was Wardwell, was a tall, lean girl with a
long, pointed nose. She kept up a running accompaniment of small talk to
the music.

"Last Christmas," she said plaintively, "we went out into the country
in a hay-wagon and had a real time. I don't know what I am here for,
anyhow. I am a fool."

"Undoubtedly," said Carlotta.

"Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's
the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of
what I sat down to to-day--!"

She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital
differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while
Sidney's had been to care for her patients.

Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idly
glued the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was
scratching a skull and cross-bones on it.

"I wonder if you have noticed something," she said, eyes on the label.

"I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given," said
Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the
rounds of the ward.

When she came back she was sulky.

"I'm no gossip," she said, putting the tray on the table. "If you won't
see, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying."

As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta
paid no attention to this.

"What won't I see?"

It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importance
and let her superior ask her twice. Then:--

"Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page."

A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.

"They're old friends."

"Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you
wanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll
never finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish," concluded the
probationer plaintively, "that some good-looking fellow like that would
take a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, but
I've got style."

She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her
lanky, ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy
would have dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long
jade earrings, and made her a fashion.

Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny
Rosenfeld's white cheeks,