ago, which had then shone round her great design,
had faded. To conceive such a design is one thing, to go down on the
knees and scour floors week after week is something different.

She did not intend, however, to give up. When she rose in the morning
she looked out over the London tiles and through the smoke with a
miserable sinking of heart, hoping, if she hoped for anything, for the
end of the day, and still more for the end of life; but still she
persevered, and determined to persevere.

One day a new case came into the ward. It was evidently serious. A
man returning home late at night, drunk or nearly so, had fallen under
a cart in crossing a road and had been terribly crushed. He had
received some injury to the head and was unconscious. Miriam, to whom
such events were now tolerably familiar, took no particular notice
until her work brought her near the bed, and then she saw to her
amazement and horror that the poor wretch was Montgomery. Instantly
all that had slumbered in her, as fire slumbers in grey ashes, broke
out into flame. She continually crept as well as she could towards
him, and listened for any remark which might be dropped by nurse or
doctor upon his condition. Three days afterwards he died, without
having once regained his reason save just one hour before death. He
then opened his eyes--they fell upon Miriam; he knew her, and with a
faint kind of astonishment muttered her name. Before she could come
close to him he had gone.

Another month passed, and as Miriam's constitutional failings showed no
sign of mitigation, Miss Dashwood found herself obliged to take serious
notice of them. The experienced, professional superintendent knew
perfectly well that the smart, neat, methodical girl, with no motive in
her but the desire of succeeding and earning a good living, was worth a
dozen who were self-sacrificing but not soldierly. One morning, after
Miss Dashwood's patience had been more than usually tried, she sent for
Miriam, and kindly but firmly told her that she was unsuitable for a
hospital and must prepare to leave. She was not taken by surprise; she
had said the same thing to herself a dozen times before; but when it
was made certain to her by another person, it sounded differently.

She sought her friend Miss Tippit. To Miss Tippit the experience was
not new. She had herself in her humble way imagined schemes of
usefulness, which were broken through personal unfitness; she knew