er
the girl's head.

"The evening paper says there's a girl going to be married on your
street."

"Really! Oh, I think I know. A friend of mine is going to be married.
Was the name Lorenz?"

"The girl's name was Lorenz. I--I don't remember the man's name."

"She is going to marry a Mr. Howe," said Sidney briskly. "Now, how do
you feel? More comfy?"

"Fine! I suppose you'll be going to that wedding?"

"If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go."

Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her
reports. On one record, which said at the top, "Grace Irving, age 19,"
and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night
nurse wrote:--

"Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but
complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three."

Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next
morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney
a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the
thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who
had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself
by change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.

Once she ventured a protest:--

"I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is
wrong, show me what you want, and I'll do my best."

"I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not
speak back when you are spoken to."

Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position
in the ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small
humiliations were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and
often unnecessary tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place,
remonstrated with her senior.

"I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer," she
said, "but you are brutal, Miss Harrison."

"She's stupid."

"She's not at all stupid. She's going to be one of the best nurses in
the house."

"Report me, then. Tell the Head I'm abusing Dr. Wilson's pet
probationer, that I don't always say 'please' when I ask her to change a
bed or take a temperature."

Miss Grange was not lacking in keenness. She died not go to the Head,
which is unethical under any circumstances; but gradually there spread
through the training-school a story that Carlotta Harrison was jealous
of the new Page girl, Dr. Wilson's protegee. Th