"
She was quite right, of course. To continue would have been equally rude
and foolish. I had perforce to bottle up my curiosity for the moment and
wait till my sibyl was in the mood for interpreting.
After lunch we adjourned to the drawing-room. Almost at once, Hilda Wade
flitted up with her brisk step to the corner where I was sitting. "Oh,
Dr. Cumberledge," she began, as if nothing odd had occurred before, "I
WAS so glad to meet you and have a chance of talking to you, because I
DO so want to get a nurse's place at St. Nathaniel's."
"A nurse's place!" I exclaimed, a little surprised, surveying her dress
of palest and softest Indian muslin; for she looked to me far too much
of a butterfly for such serious work. "Do you really mean it; or are
you one of the ten thousand modern young ladies who are in quest of a
Mission, without understanding that Missions are unpleasant? Nursing, I
can tell you, is not all crimped cap and becoming uniform."
"I know that," she answered, growing grave. "I ought to know it. I am a
nurse already at St. George's Hospital."
"You are a nurse! And at St. George's! Yet you want to change to
Nathaniel's? Why? St.
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