th me!"

"Oh, do," said Polly, partly covering the pupils of her eyes with her
eyelids.

The man lowered his voice and said something about Glory which Glory did
not catch, then waved his white-kid glove, saying "Ta-ta," and was gone.

"Is he married?" said Glory.

"Married! Good gracious, no; what ridiculous ideas you've got!"

It was ten minutes after ten as the girls turned in at a sharp trot at
the door of the hospital, still prattling and chattering and bringing
some of the gaiety and nonsense of their holiday into the quiet precincts
of the house of pain. The porter shook his finger at them with mock
severity, and a ward Sister going through the porch in her white silence
stopped to say that a patient had been crying out for one of them.

"It's me--I know it's me," said Polly. "I've got a brother here out of a
monastery, and he can't do with anybody else about him. It makes me tired
of my life."

But it was Glory who was wanted. The woman whom John Storm had picked up
out of the streets was dying. Glory had helped to nurse her, and the poor
old thing had kept herself alive that she might deliver to Glory her last
charge and message. She could see nobody, so Glory leaned over the bed
and spoke to her.

"I'm here, mammie; what is it?" she said, and the flushed young face bent
close above the withered and white one.

"He spoke to me friendly and squeedged my 'and, he did. S'elp me never,
it's true. Gimme a black cloth on the corfin, my dear, and mind yer tell
'im to foller."

"Yes, mammie, yes. I will-be sure I--I--Oh!"

It was Glory's first death.

IX.

John Storm had been through his first morning call that afternoon. For
this ordeal he had presented himself in a flannel shirt in the hall,
where the canon was waiting for him in patent-leather boots and kid
gloves, and his daughter Felicity in cream silk and white feathers. After
they had seated themselves in the carriage the canon, said: "You don't
quite do yourself justice, Mr. Storm. Believe me, to be well dressed is a
great thing to a young man making his way in London."

The carriage stopped at a house that seemed to be only round the corner.

"This is Mrs. Macrae's," the canon whispered. "An American lady-widow of
a millionaire. Her daughter--you will see her presently--is to marry into
one of our best English families."

They were walking up the wide staircase behind the footman in blue. There
was a buzz of voices coming from a room