anybody;' and I had somehow to put up
with it."

"Drastic!" said Hallin, laughing; "did you comfort yourself by
reflecting that it was everybody's fate?"

Her lip twitched with amusement.

"Not for a long time. I used to have the most absurd ideas!--sometimes
looking back I can hardly believe it--perhaps it was partly a queer
state of nerves. When I was at school and got in a passion I used to try
and overawe the girls by shaking my Speaker great-uncle in their faces.
And so in hospital; it would flash across me sometimes in a plaintive
sort of way that they _couldn't_ know that I was Miss Boyce of Mellor,
and had been mothering and ruling the whole of my father's village--or
they wouldn't treat me so. Mercifully I held my tongue. But one day it
came to a crisis. I had had to get things ready for an operation, and
had done very well. Dr. Marshall had paid me even a little compliment
all to myself. But then afterwards the patient was some time in coming
to, and there had to be hot-water bottles. I had them ready of course;
but they were too hot, and in my zeal and nervousness I burnt the
patient's elbow in two places. Oh! the _fuss_, and the scolding, and the
humiliation! When I left the ward that evening I thought I would go home
next day."

"But you didn't?"

"If I could have sat down and thought it out, I should probably have
gone. But I couldn't think it out--I was too _dead_ tired. That is the
chief feature of your first months in hospital--the utter helpless
fatigue at night. You go to bed aching and you wake up aching. If you
are healthy as I was, it doesn't hurt you; but, when your time comes to
sleep, sleep you _must_. Even that miserable night my head was no sooner
on the pillow than I was asleep; and next morning there was all the
routine as usual, and the dread of being a minute late on duty. Then
when I got into the ward the Sister looked at me rather queerly and went
out of her way to be kind to me. Oh! I was so grateful to her! I could
have brushed her boots or done any other menial service for her with
delight. And--then--somehow I pulled through. The enormous interest of
the work seized me--I grew ambitious--they pushed me on
rapidly--everybody seemed suddenly to become my friend instead of my
enemy--and I ended by thinking the hospital the most fascinating and
engrossing place in the whole world."

"A curious experience," said Hallin. "I suppose you had never obeyed any
one in your life before?