h as she exclaimed:

"Why, of course, that's the very thing I mean."

It was a strange surprise that Lloyd had in store for them all. Her
heart began to beat heavy and thick. Could she even find her voice to
speak when the time came? Would it not be better to put it off, to think
over the whole matter again between now and to-morrow morning? But she
moved her head impatiently. No, she would not turn back. She found that
the sliding doors in the drawing-room had been closed, and so went to
the door that opened into the dining-room from the hall itself. It stood
ajar. Lloyd pushed it open, entered, and, closing the door behind her,
stood there leaning against it.

The table was almost full; only two or three places besides her own were
unoccupied. There was Miss Bergyn at the head; the fever nurse, Miss
Douglass, at her right, and, lower down, Lloyd saw Esther Thielman;
Delia Craig, just back from a surgical case of Dr. Street's; Miss Page,
the oldest and most experienced nurse of them all; Gilbertson, whom
every one called by her last name; Miss Ives and Eleanor Bogart, who had
both taken doctors' degrees, and could have practised if they had
desired; Miss Wentworth, who had served an apprenticeship in a
missionary hospital in Armenia, and had known Clara Barton, and, last of
all, the newcomer, Miss Truslow, very young and very pretty, who had
never yet had a case, and upon whose diploma the ink was hardly dry.

At first, so quietly had she entered, no one took any notice of Lloyd,
and she stood a moment, her back to the door, wondering how she should
begin. Everybody seemed to be in the best of humour; a babel of talk was
in the air; conversations were going forward, carried on across the
table, or over intervening shoulders.

"Why, of course, don't you see, that's the very thing I meant--"

"--I think you can get that already sized, though, and with a stencil
figure if you want it--"

"--Really, it's very interesting; the first part is stupid, but she has
some very good ideas."

"--Yes, at Vanoni's. But we get a reduction, you know--"

"--and, oh, listen; this is too funny; she turned around and said, very
prim and stiff, 'No, indeed; I'm too old a woman.' Funny! If I think of
that on my deathbed I shall laugh--"

"--and so that settled it. How could I go on after that--?"

"--Must you tack it on? The walls are so hard--"

"Let Rownie do it; she knows. Oh, here's the invalid!"

"Oh, why, it's Lloyd! We'r