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.George's is in a much nicer part of London, and the patients there come on an average from a much better class than ours in Smithfield." "I know that too; but...