lace. He said he
wasn't in very bad pain now, and he would take her place. He made very
little of it, but it meant a lot to us, and to him, too, poor fellow.
Annie didn't want to do it, but he insisted. Sick folks know how to be
kind to sick folks, I tell you."

The dawn began to show blue behind the frost ferns on the window and
the lamps overhead looked pale and sickly in the grey light.

"Annie had her operation on Monday," she went on after a long pause.
"She was lookin' every day for a letter from Dave, and when the doctor
told her they would operate on her on Monday morning early, she asked
him if he would mind putting it off until noon. She thought there would
be a letter from Dave, for sure, on that morning's mail. The doctor was
very kind to her--they understand a lot, them Mayos--and he did put it
off. In the ward with Annie there was a little woman from Saskatchewan,
that was a very bad case. She talked to us a lot about her man and her
four children. She had a real good man by what she said. They were on a
homestead near Quill Lake, and she was so sure she'd get well. The
doctor was very hopeful of Annie, and said she had nine chances out of
ten of getting better, but this little woman's was a worse case. Dr.
Will Mayo told her she had just one chance in ten---but, dear me, she
was a brave woman; she spoke right up quick, and says she, 'That's all
I want; I'll get well if I've only half a chance. I've got to; Jim and
the children can't do without me.' Jim was her man. When they came to
take her out into the operating room they couldn't give her ether, some
way. She grabbed the doctor's hand, and says she, kind of chokin' up,
all at once, 'You'll do your best for Jim's sake, won't you?' and he
says, says he, 'My dear woman, I'll do my best for your sake.' Busy and
all as they are, they're the kindest men in the world, and just before
they began to operate the nurse brought her a letter from Jim and read
it to her, and she held it in her hand through it all, and when they
wheeled her back into the ward after the operation, it was still in her
hand, though she had fainted dead away."

"Did Annie get her letter?" I asked her.

My companion did not answer at once, but I knew very well that the
letter had not come.

"She didn't ask for it at the last; she just looked at me before they
put the gauze thing over her face. I knew what she meant. I had been
down to see if it had come, and they told me all the mail