ubling to lower her voice. "I've seen
her often. I done her washing once. She's as bad as they make 'em."

"You shut your mouth!" Irish Delia rose to the defence. "She's in
trouble now and what she was don't matter. You go back to bed or
I'll tell the Head Nurse on you. Look out! The Dummy----"

The Dummy was advancing on Old Maggie with threatening eyes. As the
woman recoiled he caught her arm in one of his ugly, misshapen hands
and jerked her away from the bed. Old Maggie reeled--almost fell.

"You all seen that!" she appealed to the ward. "I haven't even spoke
to him and he attacked me! I'll go to the superintendent about it.
I'll----"

The Probationer hurried in. Her young cheeks were flushed with
excitement and anxiety; her arms were full of jugs, towels,
bandages--anything she could imagine as essential. She found the
Dummy on his knees polishing a bed plate, and the ward in
order--only Old Maggie was grumbling and making her way back to bed;
and Irish Delia was sitting up, with her eyes shining--for had not
the Dummy, who could not hear, known what Old Maggie had said about
the new girl? Had she not said that he knew many things that were
hidden, though God knows how he knew them?

The next hour saw the Avenue Girl through a great deal. Her burns
were dressed by an _interne_ and she was moved back to a bed at the
end of the ward. The Probationer sat beside her, having refused
supper. The Dummy was gone--the Senior Nurse had shooed him off as
one shoos a chicken.

"Get out of here! You're always under my feet," she had said--not
unkindly--and pointed to the door.

The Dummy had stood, with his faded old-young eyes on her, and had
not moved. The Senior, who had the ward supper to serve and beds to
brush out and backs to rub, not to mention having to make up the
emergency bed and clear away the dressings--the Senior tried
diplomacy and offered him an orange from her own corner of the
medicine closet. He shook his head.

"I guess he wants to know whether that girl from the Avenue's going
to get well," said Irish Delia. "He seems to know her."

There was a titter through the ward at this. Old Maggie's gossiping
tongue had been busy during the hour. From pity the ward had veered
to contempt.

"Humph!" said the Senior, and put the orange back. "Why, yes; I
guess she'll get well. But how in Heaven's name am I to let him
know?"

She was a resourceful person, however, and by pointing to the Avenue
Girl and