addition to the sharpest human suffering, and this at an age and with
a nature when the feeling of extreme repulsion, amounting to positive
loathing, is in danger of prevailing. It needed all her faith to do
battle with this worst temptation, and force pity to conquer disgust, to
recognize humbly the frailty of the best and wisest men and women, to
acknowledge willingly, even thankfully, the propriety, if one may so use
the word, of what a preacher has called each Christian's suffering, "the
just for the unjust."

No wonder poor Annie's bright face took frequently a worn and harassed
look in those early days of hospital work.

Yet so great is the elasticity of youth, and so brave and cheerful was
the girl's temperament for the most part, that within an hour of such
prostrating attacks and violent revolts, she would be on her way with
her own little tea-pot to the retiring-room, where the lady probationers
and sisters assembled in order to profit by the great boiler steaming on
the hob for their women's refreshment of tea. It was about the only
servile act which they were required to do for themselves, while they
were the servants of others, and they all enjoyed doing it with true
housewifely relish. Annie, especially, was an adept at such tea-making,
and would propound her theories and circulate specimens of her
performance among her companions who profited by her skill, with a glee
not far removed from the mirth of the Millar girls on many a happy
family gathering in the old nursery or the drawing-room at Redcross.

The whole circumstances of one of the bad days in her lot Annie could
never quite forget. It was a raw, gray winter's day, cheerless above and
below, and all went wrong on it, from the moment Annie opened her sleepy
eyes, leapt shivering out of bed, washed in cold water by her own
choice, in order to rouse herself, dressed by gaslight, swallowed her
coffee scalding hot, and hastened to her particular ward. The sister and
the house-surgeon were, as if affected by the day, a little sour and
surly, and every patient seemed more or less out of tune, dismal,
grumbling, delirious, or in a state of collapse.

It was one of Annie's out-days, and as a matter of duty, but by no means
of enjoyment, she braced herself to change her hospital dress for a
walking dress. After she felt chilled to the bone, she started for a
walk, either to be jostled and forced along in a crowded thoroughfare,
where she too might have