ergency, that the operating surgeon, with a glance at her, put her
youth and position as a probationer aside, and accepted what help she
could give.

It was a critical case, and for some medical reason no anaesthetic could
be administered. The boy was past the unconsciousness of childhood, and
though nearly fainting with fright, pain, and weakness, remained quite
sensible of the further ordeal he had to undergo. He was keenly alive to
the humane motive which induced the surgeon to turn his back upon him in
selecting his instruments. He even heard, with ears morbidly acute, the
low words addressed to the interested spectators, "Now, gentlemen, I am
about to begin."

With a stifled sob the poor little fellow suddenly managed to raise
himself from the table on which he was stretched. He looked round wildly
on the circle of men's faces, controlled and expectant, with a certain
every-day expression in anticipation of what, in its blind terror and
life and death importance to him, was a familiar occurrence to them, and
on the one woman's face, controlled too, but with an indescribable
wistfulness under the control. Then he made his childish appeal, shrill
with misery, "Oh, gentlemen, will you not stop till I say my prayers?"

There was an instant pause of surprise, commiseration, constraint--the
peculiar awkwardness which in Englishmen waits on any provocation to
betray feeling. Nobody liked to look at his neighbour to see how he
looked, lest there should be the most distant sign of emotion in his own
face. Some strong men there had ceased to pray or to believe in prayer,
yet all were more or less touched by the lad's implicit faith.

As for Annie she had been praying at that very moment, praying fervently
in the silence of her heart, that she might be saved from breaking down
and allowed to be of some service to the boy.

"Certainly, certainly, my little chap; but you must be quick about it,"
said the great surgeon a little hoarsely.

"Our-Father-which-art-in-Heaven," began the boy, running the words
together and speaking with a parrot-like monotony in an unnaturally
high-pitched key. Then his voice began to quaver a little till he
stopped short with a cry of despair--"I cannot mind the words, I cannot
say my prayers. Oh! will nobody say them for me? If mother, as is not in
Lon'on, were here, she would do it fast," he ended, flinging out one
thin arm and clutching convulsively at the air in a kind of
panic-stricken ter