ight! I
never should have known you if you hadn't spoken. You look like the
pictures in our Sunday School lessons of how they used to bury folks in
the Bible, with that nightgown on and all that white stuff over your
head. It's rather 'propriate, though, for this room looks like a
_car-slop-egus_. Isn't that what you call the graves they used to put
people in?"

"Sarcophagus," suggested the doctor, only the twinkle of his deep blue
eyes betraying his amusement. "That is a casket of stone. Is that what
you mean?"

"Yes, I guess so, though I thought it was a room hacked out of the side
of a hill where they stuck folks when they died, instead of putting them
in graves like we do. Where is the man which is going to give me the
_antiseptic_?"

"Right here, my girl," chuckled a deep voice on the other side of her,
and she looked up into the eyes of a second white-swathed figure,
already beginning to adjust the anaesthetizer over her head. "Now don't
be afraid. Just take a deep, deep breath--"

"I know all about it," she interrupted. "I've been through this same
performance once before. That stuff hasn't changed its smell a bit,
either. Are you all ready? Well, then, good-night. If Dr. Dick don't
know his business, I 'xpect I'm a goner."

The bright eyes drooped shut, the childish voice trailed off into
silence, and the little patient slept while the skillful surgeons mended
the bruised back and useless limbs.

CHAPTER XII

MISS WAYNE

Peace awoke to find herself lying in a narrow iron bed, drawn close
beside a window, through which she could see clouds of great, feathery
snow-flakes swirling lazily, softly downwards; and not remembering where
she was or how she came to be there, she murmured half aloud, "The
angels seem to be shedding their feathers pretty lively today, don't
they?"

"What did you say?" asked a strange voice from somewhere in the
background, and a sweet face framed in glossy black hair bent over her.

"Maybe it's heaven after all," mused Peace to herself, "though I should
think they would have dec'rations on the walls of heaven, 'nstead of
leaving 'em naked." Then she spoke aloud, surprised at the effort it
cost her, "Are you a dead nurse?"

"Do I look very dead?" questioned the strange voice again, and the face
above her broke into a rare smile.

"Well, then, how did you get to heaven?"

"This isn't heaven, dear. You are in Danbury Hospital. Have you
forgotten?"

"O, that's so. I