Never before
in the history of the college had such an outburst of enthusiasm greeted
a graduate.

CHAPTER XV.

A HOSPITAL AND A BOARDING HOUSE.

Long rows of windows in a massive building gave light to thousands
within, who in turn looked out upon the thousands plodding their way to
and from toil. It was in one of the hospital zones of the second city in
the United States and the building was one of the largest hospitals in
the city. Within the memory of the present generation the word
"hospital" was fraught with weird and uncanny dark rooms, bloody floors,
shrieking victims of accident or disease undergoing the torture of the
knife, muffled rumbles of iron-wheeled trucks rolling in new patients or
wheeling the lifeless form of the dead to the morgue. Over the door,
unseen by mortal man, an ominous inscription, "He who enters here leaves
all hope behind."

By the onward, irresistible advance of that flickering flame which
penetrates the darkest corner of bigotry and ignorance, science has
groped its way beyond the portals of death and snatched many from the
very coffin after being prepared for the grave. This is civilization.
Even today thousands look askance at the uncompromising brick and stone
walls, shuddering as the ambulance gong warns them of its approach,
bearing the victim, perchance, of some terrible disaster. To the
unsophisticated who visit for the first time one of these institutions a
surprise is in store. The awful gloom is penetrated by sunlight. In
place of bespattered walls and crimson stained operating table are snow
white tiling and glass slabs mounted on iron frames. The sickening
offensive odor of the old "slaughter pens" has been relegated to the
dark ages, and nothing worse than a whiff of carbolic acid or a possible
suspicion of iodoform greets the most sensitive nostrils.

Within such an institution Chiquita found herself face to face with the
"medicine" man of the paleface, and her white sister in "medicine"
clothes. Arrayed at last in the oriental blue and white striped uniform,
white apron with strings crossed at the back and jaunty little white
cap, Chiquita began the task of familiarizing herself with the calling
which so recently has placed woman in a sphere entirely her own, and
made her the subject of hero worship on battlefield and in peaceful
home. Faithfully she performed the laborious work of smoothing the
rumpled clothing of a fever-racked patient, or adjusting the