Lloyd turned from the mirror, laying down the comb. She had yet to pack her nurse's bag, or, since this was always ready, to make sure that none of its equipment was lacking. She was very proud of this bag, as she had caused it to be made after her own ideas and design. It was of black russia leather and in the form of an ordinary valise, but set off with a fine silver clasp bearing her name and the agency's address. She brought it from the closet and ran over its contents, murmuring the while to herself: "Clinical thermometer--brandy--hypodermic syringe--vial of oxalic-acid crystals--minim-glass--temperature charts; yes, yes, everything right." While she was still speaking Miss Douglass, the fever nurse, knocked at her door, and, finding it ajar, entered without further ceremony. "Are you in, Miss Searight?" called Miss Douglass, looking about the room, for Lloyd had returned to the closet and was busy washing the minim-glass. "Yes, yes," cried Lloyd, "I am. Sit down." "Rownie told me you are next on call," said the other, dropping on Lloyd's couch. "So I am; I was very nearly caught, too. I ran over across the square for five minutes, and while I was gone Miss Wakeley and Esther Thielman were called. My name is at the top now." "Esther got a typhoid case from Dr. Pitts. Do you know, Lloyd, that's--let me see, that's four--seven--nine--that's ten typhoid cases in the City that I can think of right now." "It's everywhere; yes, I know," answered Lloyd, coming out of the room, carefully drying the minim-glass. "We are going to have trouble with it," continued the fever nurse; "plenty of it before cool weather comes. It's almost epidemic." Lloyd held the minim-glass against the light, scrutinising it with narrowed lids. "What did Esther say when she knew it was an infectious case?" she asked. "Did she hesitate at all?" "Not she!" declared Miss Douglass. "She's no Harriet Freeze." Lloyd did not answer. This case of Harriet Freeze was one that the nurses of the house had never forgotten and would never forgive. Miss Freeze, a young English woman, newly graduated, suddenly called upon to nurse a patient stricken with smallpox, had flinched and had been found wanting at the crucial moment, had discovered an excuse for leaving her post, having once accepted it. It was cowardice in the presence of the Enemy. Anything could have been forgiven but that. On the girl's return to the agency nothing was said, no action taken, but for all that she was none the less expelled dishonourably from the midst of her companions. Nothing could have been stronger than the _esprit de corps_ of this group of young women, whose lives were devoted to an unending battle with disease. Lloyd continued the overhauling of her equipment, and began ruling forms for nourishment charts, while Miss Douglass importuned her to subscribe to a purse the nurses were making up for an old cripple dying of cancer. Lloyd refused.