r. Capes was right as to the popularity of his motion. It was
received with unanimous approval. Annie, the matron, and the directors
of St. Ebbe's, were immediately applied to in proper form. Annie burned
to go, if such a step were admissible at the present stage of her
career. The favour she had won on all sides aided in the fulfilment of
her wishes. She was promoted from the ranks of the probationers to those
of the nurses while yet her year wanted a fraction of its complete
round, and was officially sent down to represent the nurses of St.
Ebbe's at Redcross.

"Of course, Dora, you cannot be left behind to go on by yourself hunting
for a situation with three-fourths of the great world out of town. I am
afraid you would make a poor job of it at the best, Dora dear, and at
the worst it is not to be thought of; it would be a waste of
nerve-tissue and muscle, as well as of pounds, shillings, and pence. You
will come too; we'll be all together, or nearly together, again, for a
holiday, after all."

Dora, who had been waiting patiently for Annie's decision, was nothing
loth.

"Rose's expenses and mine are more than paid," calculated the practical
Annie, "so that we shall be no drag on father and mother. I don't know
if Robarts's accommodation will extend beyond the additional bedroom for
Rose and May, but that can be easily managed. Oh! I have it, Dora, you
will stay with me at the hospital--the Corn Exchange I mean--and save me
from having a housekeeper for the short time one will be wanted. I'll
take care that no infection, if there be infection, will come near you.
Oh, 'won't it be jolly,' as Rose says, for you and me to keep house by
ourselves at dear old Redcross, of all places in the world?"

It was arranged so, with only a little demur from Mrs. Millar,
over-ruled by her husband.

There was another person, without right or power to enter his veto
against the existing order of things, who nevertheless decidedly
demurred at them. Tom Robinson showed that though he might be a humane
man there were bounds to his humanity. "It is all very well for Annie
Millar to come down and nurse the fever patients, it is in the way of
her business, she does as much every day, she is well acquainted with
all the precautions to take. But Dora is not a nurse, she never thinks
of herself, she will forget to take the precautions if she has ever
heard of them. She has not strong nerves, and she is used up with this
preposterous stump