g, and not what people always claim to have
with an ordinary cold. The worst will probably be over in a few days,
but it will leave her so exhausted and so susceptible to other things
that I shall keep her with me for a week at least."

Lloyd rebelled at first, but she had to submit as her fever mounted
higher, and the world grew, to her blurred fancy, one great, throbbing
ache. She was glad to give herself up to Miss Gilmer's soothing touches.
Mrs. Sherman did not come, for a letter from the school physician
assured her that Lloyd was receiving every care and attention that she
could have had at home, and the case was quite a simple one.

Miss Gilmer, the nurse, was a big motherly woman, who seemed to radiate
comfort and cheer, as a stove does heat. After the first few days, Lloyd
would have enjoyed the time spent with her in the cheerful room assigned
her had she not been haunted by the thought that she was falling behind
her classes.

"It's a pretty good sawt of a world, aftah all," she said one day, as
she sat propped up among the pillows, enjoying a dainty mid-afternoon
lunch Madam Chartley had personally prepared and sent in hot from the
chafing-dish. Bouillon in the thinnest of fragile china, and a toasted
scone which recalled delightfully the little English inn she had visited
near Kenilworth ruins. By some oversight, no spoon had been sent in on
the tray, and Miss Gilmer supplied the deficiency by bringing one of her
own from a little cabinet in the next room.

"It has a history," Miss Gilmer said, and Lloyd looked at it with
interest before dipping it into the cup.

"Why, the handle is a May-pole!" she exclaimed, with pleasure. "And the
date down among the garlands is the queen's birthday, isn't it? I
remembah we were up in the Burns country that day, when we saw the
school-children celebrating it."

"To think of an American girl remembering that date!" cried Miss Gilmer,
in a pleased tone. "It is a great day on my calendar, for it was then
that I met Madam Chartley, for the first time, on the queen's birthday.
She has been my good angel ever since. It was she who sent me that
May-pole spoon, as a souvenir of that meeting."

"Oh, would you tell me about it?" asked Lloyd. "It sounds so
interesting."

Taking up some needlework from a basket on the table, Miss Gilmer leaned
back as if to begin a long story.

"There isn't so much to tell, after all," she said, pausing to thread
her needle. "It was long