“Then, I don't think you'd better undertake it,” he said. “There are too many nurses there already, such as they are. It's the dull time in most of the shops, you know, and the women have plenty of leisure. There are about five volunteer nurses for every patient, not counting the grandmothers on both sides. I think they would resent any outside aid.” “Ah, I'm always on the outside! But can't I send--I mean carry--them anything nourishing, any little dishes--” “Arrowroot is about all the convalescents can manage.” She made a note of it. “But jelly and chicken broth are always relished by their friends.” “Dr. Morrell, I must ask you not to turn me into ridicule, if you please. I cannot permit it.” “I beg your pardon--I do indeed, Miss Kilburn. I didn't mean to ridicule you. I began seriously, but I was led astray by remembering what becomes of most of the good things sent to sick people.” “I know,” she said, breaking into a laugh. “I have eaten lots of them for my father. And is arrowroot the only thing?” The doctor reflected gravely. “Why, no. There's a poor little life now and then that might be saved by the sea-air. Yes, if you care to send some of my patients, with a mother and a grandmother apiece, to the seaside--” “Don't say another word, doctor,” cried Annie. “You make me _so_ happy! I will--I will send their whole families. And you won't, you _won't_ let a case escape, will you, doctor?” It was a break in the iron wall of uselessness which had closed her in; she behaved like a young girl with an invitation to a ball. When the first patient came back well from the seaside her rejoicing overflowed in exultation before the friends to whom she confessed her agency in the affair. Putney pretended that he could not see what pleasure she could reasonably take in restoring the child to the sort of life it had been born to; but that was a matter she would not consider, theoretically or practically. She began to go outside of Dr. Morrell's authority; she looked up two cases herself, and, upon advising with their grandmothers, sent them to the seaside, and she was at the station when the train came in with the young mother and the still younger aunt of one of the sick children. She did not see the baby, and the mother passed her with a stare of impassioned reproach, and fell sobbing on the neck of her husband, waiting for her on the platform. Annie felt the blood drop back upon her heart. She caught at the girlish aunt, who was looking about her with a sense of the interest which attached to herself as a party to the spectacle. “Oh, Rebecca, where is the child?” “Well, there, Miss Kilburn, I'm _ril_ sorry to tell you, but I guess the sea-air didn't do it a great deal of good, if any. I tell Maria she'll see it in the right light after a while, but of course she can't, first off. Well, there! _Somebody's_ got to look after it. You'll excuse _me_, Miss Kilburn.”