t be troublin' 'isself about this
'ere bloomin' street _ev_ery day in the week."

There was a sharp knock at the door.

"The doctor," she said, as her face dismissed the frolic brightness
which had stolen upon it for a moment. "Run away, Benny."

Benny opened the door, looked the doctor coolly up and down, and then
withdrew to the landing, where his sisters were waiting to play with
him.

The doctor, a tall man of thirty, with a red, blurred face and a fair
moustache, walked in hurriedly, and stared at the nurse standing by the
fire.

"You come from the St. Martin's Association?"

Marcella stiffly replied. He took her temperature-chart from her hand
and asked her some questions about the night, staring at her from time
to time with eyes that displeased her. Presently she came to an account
of the condition in which she had found her patient. The edge on the
words, for all their professional quiet, was unmistakable. She saw him
flush.

He moved towards the bed, and she went with him. The woman moaned as he
approached her. He set about his business with hands that shook.
Marcella decided at once that he was not sober, and watched his
proceedings with increasing disgust and amazement. Presently she could
bear it no longer.

"I think," she said, touching his arm, "that you had better leave it to
me--and--go away!"

He drew himself up with a start which sent the things he held flying,
and faced her fiercely.

"What do you mean?" he said, "don't you know your place?"

The girl was very white, but her eyes were scornfully steady.

"Yes--I know my place!"

Then with a composure as fearless as it was scathing she said what she
had to say. She knew--and he could not deny--that he had endangered his
patient's life. She pointed out that he was in a fair way to endanger it
again. Every word she said lay absolutely within her sphere as a nurse.
His cloudy brain cleared under the stress of it.

Then his eyes flamed, his cheeks became purple, and Marcella thought for
an instant he would have struck her. Finally he turned down his
shirt-cuffs and walked away.

"You understand," he said thickly, turning upon her, with his hat in his
hand, "that I shall not attend this case again till your Association can
send me a nurse that will do as she is told without insolence to the
doctor. I shall now write a report to your superintendent."

"As you please," said Marcella, quietly. And she went to the door and
opened it.

H