.

An hour later, Kruger Bobs was squatting on the ground, a heaped
plate on his knees and a smile of rapture surrounding his smacking
lips. Near him, the three horses munched contentedly, stamping
lightly now and then and whisking their tails to drive off the
buzzing flies. Outside the door of the tent, Alice Mellen sat on a
bench, with Carew at her side and Weldon sprawling lazily on the
ground at her feet.

"Twenty-seven inside," she told them. "It is mostly enteric and S.
C., men who have been sent here from Bloemfontein. Their hospitals
are overcrowded. We have both sorts here, you know."

"Nursing Boers?" Carew asked, disapprovingly.

"Why not? They are men, plucky men, too, some of them. I rather like
the race. Anyway, it makes an interesting mixture. We have had to
put them all together, and they get on capitally, exchanging stories
and gossip and sympathy like men of the same company. One of them, a
Boer,--" she hesitated for the right word; then she adopted the
vernacular of the service--"went out, the other day; and, among his
mourners, the sincerest ones were the two London Tommies in the two
next beds. War isn't all hatred, by any means. Turn nurse for a
month and you'll find it out."

"Or else turn patient," Carew interpolated quietly.

Her color came; but she only turned more directly to Weldon.

"I was glad to come here for a change," she added. "Shall you stay
here long?"

"It is impossible to tell. The other nurses here are younger at it
than I, and there are some hard cases. If it were not for Syb, I
should be at my wits' end sometimes."

"Then ought you to stay here?" Carew urged, with a sudden assumption
of proprietorship which sat well upon him.

She faced him with a smile.

"Oh, but this is nothing in comparison with Johannesburg. There the
work is agonizing. Between wounds and enteric, the place is crammed,
and we can't get the nurses we absolutely need. My mother thought I
was growing too tired, and she sent Syb up here to take care of me.
Instead, I have pressed her into the service and trained her until
she is one of the best nurses I have ever had under me. The men
adore her, she is so strong and so full of her queer, jolly fun."

With his head pillowed on his arms, Weldon lay watching her
thoughtfully. Under her piles of inky hair, her face looked thin,
and the shadows lay heavy around her eyes. Nevertheless, the eyes
were shining and the curves of the lips were all upward. P