ravel
walk as though driving the manicuring idea into a deep grave. He did not
see that the girl was smiling at him mockingly.

"You?" protested Sam. "You in a barber's shop washing men's fingers who
are not fit to wash the streets you walk on I Good Lord!" His vehemence
was quite honest. The girl ceased smiling. Sam was still jabbing at the
gravel walk, his profile toward her--and, unobserved, she could study
his face. It was an attractive face strong, clever, almost illegally
good-looking. It explained why, as, he had complained to the city
editor, his chief trouble in New York was with the women. With his eyes
full of concern, Sam turned to her abruptly. "How much do they give you
a month?" "Forty dollars," answered Sister Anne. "This is what hurts me
about it," said Sam.

"It is that you should have to work and wait on other people when there
are so many strong, hulking men who would count it God's blessing to
work for you, to wait on you, and give their lives for you. However,
probably you know that better than I do."

"No; I don't know that," said Sister Anne.

Sam recognized that it was quite absurd that it should be so, but this
statement gave him a sense of great elation, a delightful thrill of
relief. There was every reason why the girl should not confide in a
complete stranger--even to deceive him was quite within her rights; but,
though Sam appreciated this, he preferred to be deceived.

"I think you are working too hard," he said, smiling happily. "I think
you ought to have a change. You ought to take a day off! Do they ever
give you a day off?"

"Next Saturday," said Sister Anne. "Why?"

"Because," explained Sam, "if you won't think it too presumptuous, I was
going to prescribe a day off for you--a day entirely away from iodoform
and white enamelled cots. It is what you need, a day in the city and a
lunch where they have music; and a matinee, where you can laugh--or cry,
if you like that better--and then, maybe, some fresh air in the park in
a taxi; and after that dinner and more theatre, and then I'll see you
safe on the train for Greenwich. Before you answer," he added hurriedly,
"I want to explain that I contemplate taking a day off myself and doing
all these things with you, and that if you want to bring any of the
other forty nurses along as a chaperon, I hope you will. Only, honestly,
I hope you won't!"

The proposal apparently gave Sister Anne much pleasure. She did not
say so, but her eye