iven by the dismal October wind across the
white radiance of the arc lamps. I thought that I detected upon her
metallic face a faint gleam of pleasure.

"It has been a good day," she said, without rising and with her
characteristic brusqueness. "Mrs. Marbury is glad that you have not
suggested a hospital, and desired me to say so." Indicating the bed
with its inert little human body she added, "Peaceful."

"The wall?" said I.

She smiled insultingly.

"You are interested?" she asked.

I scowled, I think.

"Oh, well," she said, moving her shoulders, "she has been talking to
it,--whatever is behind there,--and, do you know, I believe it has been
talking to her!"

With those deliberate movements which characterized, I suppose, the
movements of her mind itself, she lit the light; under its yellow rays
lay the girl Virginia, her long lashes fringing her translucent eyelids,
her delicately turned mouth with lips parted, and an expression of peace
about the whole of her body.

"At twelve to-day," said the nurse with her finger on the chart, "she
went through apparent distress. Something seemed to give her the
greatest anxiety. She even spoke to me twice. She pointed. She said, 'It
is bad! It is bad!' with great vehemence. It was like that for more than
an hour. Then suddenly she became peaceful. She went to sleep. I have
not wakened her since."

Maybe I shuddered. I remember I merely said in answer, "Yes, yes, that's
all right!" and bent over the sleeping child. In the next moment I was
lost in wonder at the improvement which had taken place in twenty-four
hours. The tension and retraction of the neck and head had relaxed,
respiration had diminished, the lips were pink and moist, the spasmodic
nerve reaction and muscular twitching had almost ceased. I felt that
exultation which comes when instinct as much as specific observation
assures me that the tide has turned, that the arrow of fate has swung
about, and the odds have changed. Strange as it may seem to many
persons, these turns are felt by the doctor at times when the patient is
wholly unconscious of them, and often enough I have wondered if, after
all, this does not show that the crises of life are not determined
within ourselves, but by some watching eye and mind and hand outside of
us. As I bent over the little Virginia some such reflection was in my
mind.

Then you can imagine, perhaps, how startling, how much an answer to my
unspoken question, was the so