The result had not been altogether what Dr. Carmon had foreseen. Gradually he had awakened to the fact that the hospital and everything connected with it was under the absolute control--not of Dr. Frederic Carmon, but of Aunt Jane Holbrook. Each member of the white-capped corps of nurses looked to her for direction; and the cook and the man who ran the furnace refused to take orders from any one else. It was no unusual sight for the serene, white-framed face, with its crisp strings, to appear among the pipes and elbows of the furnace-room and leave behind it a whiff of common sense and a series of hints on the running of the hot-water boiler. Even Dr. Carmon himself never brought a patient to the House of Mercy without asking humble and solicitous permission of Aunt Jane. It was not known that she had ever refused him, pointblank. But she sometimes protested with a shrewd twinkle in her eye: "Oh, I can't have that Miss Enderby here. She's always wanting to have her own way about things!" Then Dr. Carmon would laugh and bring the patient. Perhaps he gave her a hint beforehand. Perhaps the fame of Aunt Jane's might had reached her. Perhaps it was the cool, firm fingers.... Whatever the reason, it is safe to say that Miss Enderby did not once have her own way from the day that she was carried into the wide doors of the House of Mercy, a sick and querulous woman, to the day when she left it with firm, quick step and, turning back at the door to fall with a sob on Aunt Jane's neck, was met with a gentle little push and a quick flash from the white-capped face. "There, there, Miss Enderby, you run right along. There's nothin' upsets folks like sayin' good-by. You come back some day and say it when you're feeling pretty well." III Aunt Jane was thinking, as she went along the wide corridor to Room 15, that the new patient was not unlike Miss Enderby. It was an hour since the operation and Aunt Jane had been in to see the patient two or three times; as she had stood looking down at her, the resemblance to Miss Enderby had come to her mind. There was the same inflexible tightening of the lips and the same contracted look of the high, level brows. A nurse coming down the corridor stopped respectfully. "Dr. Carmon has finished his visits," she said. "He asks me to say he is in your office--when you are ready." Aunt Jane nodded absently. She went on to Room 15 and looked in at the door. The patient lay with closed eyes, a half-querulous expression on the high brows, and the corners of her lips sharply drawn. Aunt Jane crossed the floor lightly and bent to listen to the breathing from the tense lips. The eyes opened slowly. "It's you!" said the woman. "Comfortable?" asked Aunt Jane. She ran her hand along the querulous forehead and straightened the clothes a little. "You'll feel better pretty soon now." "Stay with me," said the woman sharply.