od. I feel quite ready for work again."

The doctor detected a little pathetic ring beneath the almost defiant
tone in which she uttered the words, but he only said--

"We all have need of a scolding occasionally, it acts as a tonic. I
should rather like to be braced up myself for to-night's work."

"It is too bad," Mary said, almost indignantly. "You are always
insisting on our resting ourselves and you have all the work on your
shoulders. There are eight or ten of us, and you are all by yourself."

"Not quite by myself. Mr. Wingfield is of great assistance to me, and
his aid will be invaluable when the rush comes. Besides, a surgeon,
after the first operation or treatment, has little more to do than to
watch his patient, if he has nurses that he can rely upon. As he goes
his rounds he gets their reports, he knows how the patients have passed
the night, and if there is any change in their condition, and if the
wounds require rebandaging you are at hand with all that is necessary.
It is the responsibility rather than the work which tries one. Still, if
one knows that one is doing one's best, and that at any rate the wounded
are very much better cared for, and have much better chances of recovery
here than in the city hospitals, one must be content. Worry does no good
either to one's patients or to oneself. That is a maxim that does for
both of us, Miss Brander. Now you had better go in and get everything
ready. It is probable that some of those wounded early this morning may
soon be brought in."

Mary went in to her marque.

"The child is herself on the list of wounded," the surgeon said, as he
looked after her. "She has been fighting a battle of some sort and has
been hit pretty hard. Her expression has changed altogether. There was a
brisk alertness about her before and she went about her work in a
resolute business sort of way that was almost amusing in a girl of
nineteen or twenty. It was easy to see that she had good health, plenty
of sense, and an abundant confidence in herself. At one moment she would
be lecturing her patients with the gravity of a middle-aged woman, and
five minutes later chattering away with them like a young girl. I should
have put her down as absolutely heartwhole and as never having
experienced the slightest real care or trouble, as never having quite
recognized that she had grown into womanhood. Well, something has
occurred to alter all that. She has received a blow of some sort, and