assented Lloyd.

The incision was sewn up, and when all was over Lloyd carried Hattie
back to the bed in the next room. Slowly the little girl regained
consciousness, and Lloyd began to regard her once more as a human being.
During the operation she had forgotten the very existence of Hattie
Campbell, a little girl she knew. She had only seen a bit of mechanism
out of order and in the hands of a repairer. It was always so with
Lloyd. Her charges were not infrequently persons whom she knew, often
intimately, but during the time of their sickness their personalities
vanished for the trained nurse; she saw only the "case," only the
mechanism, only the deranged clockwork in imminent danger of running
down.

But the danger was by no means over. The operation had been near the
trunk. There had been considerable loss of blood, and the child's power
of resistance had been weakened by long periods of suffering. Lloyd
feared that the shock might prove too great. Farnham departed, but for a
little while the surgeon remained with Lloyd to watch the symptoms. At
length, however, he too, pressed for time, and expected at one of the
larger hospitals of the City, went away, leaving directions for Lloyd to
telephone him in case of the slightest change. At this hour, late in the
afternoon, there were no indications that the little girl would not
recover from the shock. Street believed she would rally and ultimately
regain her health.

"But," he told Lloyd as he bade her good-bye, "I don't need to impress
upon you the need of care and the greatest vigilance; absolute rest is
the only thing; she must see nobody, not even her father. The whole
system is numbed and deadened just yet, but there will be a change
either for better or worse some time to-night."

For thirty-six hours Lloyd had not closed an eye, but of that she had no
thought. Her supper was sent up to her, and she prepared herself for her
night's watch. She gave the child such nourishment as she believed she
could stand, and from time to time took her pulse, making records of it
upon her chart for the surgeon's inspection later on. At intervals she
took Hattie's temperature, placing the clinical thermometer in the
armpit. Toward nine in the evening, while she was doing this for the
third time within the hour, one of the house servants came to the room
to inform her that she was wanted on the telephone. Lloyd hesitated,
unwilling to leave Hattie for an instant. However, the