"Undoubtedly," said Carlotta.

"Turkey and goose, mince pie and pumpkin pie, four kinds of cake; that's

the sort of spread we have up in our part of the world. When I think of

what I sat down to to-day--!"

She had a profound respect for Carlotta, and her motto in the hospital

differed from Sidney's in that it was to placate her superiors, while

Sidney's had been to care for her patients.

Seeing Carlotta bored, she ventured a little gossip. She had idly glued

the label of a medicine bottle on the back of her hand, and was scratching

a skull and cross-bones on it.

"I wonder if you have noticed something," she said, eyes on the label.

"I have noticed that the three-o'clock medicines are not given," said

Carlotta sharply; and Miss Wardwell, still labeled and adorned, made the

rounds of the ward.

When she came back she was sulky.

"I'm no gossip," she said, putting the tray on the table. "If you won't

see, you won't. That Rosenfeld boy is crying."

As it was not required that tears be recorded on the record, Carlotta paid

no attention to this.

"What won't I see?"

It required a little urging now. Miss Wardwell swelled with importance

and let her superior ask her twice. Then:-"Dr. Wilson's crazy about Miss Page."

A hand seemed to catch Carlotta's heart and hold it.

"They're old friends."

"Piffle! Being an old friend doesn't make you look at a girl as if you

wanted to take a bite out of her. Mark my word, Miss Harrison, she'll

never finish her training; she'll marry him. I wish," concluded the

probationer plaintively, "that some good-looking fellow like that would

take a fancy to me. I'd do him credit. I am as ugly as a mud fence, but

I've got style."

She was right, probably. She was long and sinuous, but she wore her lanky,

ill-fitting clothes with a certain distinction. Harriet Kennedy would have

dressed her in jade green to match her eyes, and with long jade earrings,

and made her a fashion.

Carlotta's lips were dry. The violinist had seen the tears on Johnny

Rosenfeld's white cheeks, and had rushed into rollicking, joyous music.

The ward echoed with it. "I'm twenty-one and she's eighteen," hummed the

ward under its breath. Miss Wardwell's thin body swayed.

"Lord, how I'd like to dance! If I ever get out of this charnel-house!"

The medicine-tray lay at Carlotta's elbow; beside it the box of labels.

This crude girl was right--right. Carlotta knew it down to the depths of

her tortured brain. As inevitably as the night followed the day, she was

losing her game. She had lost already, unless-If she could get Sidney out of the hospital, it would simplify things. She

surmised shrewdly that on the Street their interests were wide apart. It

was here that they met on common ground.




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