It was a very pretty room, all furnished in the newest high-art style of mouldy greens and bilious-looking browns, but looking like a room which people used to sit and read and work in--a home-like-looking room. There were a few choice pictures on the green walls, among them a copy of Mercy's Good Shepherd, and the air was heavy with the soft breath of the flowers in a conservatory which opened out at the back; but the windows were shaded and darkened until there was hardly a ray of light that had the audacity to venture through. The Doctor's first act was to march across to the nearest blind and draw it up. There was a smothered cry from a soft faded green chair by the tiled fire-place, where a lady was sitting, half hidden by the heavy folds of the black robes that seemed to throw into relief her white hands and pale sad face. It was "E. M. B.," Mercy's "_tind_ lady." She covered her face with her hands, with a little cry of protest, as the blessed sun streamed in; but the Doctor never left things half done; so up went another blind, and the window-sash too, before he came over and stood beside her, looking down at her with a compassionate expression that would have surprised more than one lady if she had seen it on "that old bear's" face. "Oh, Doctor, how could you?" murmured Mrs. Braithwaite, reproachfully. "It is so bright." "Well, madam," said the eccentric Doctor, "the world _is_ bright. I can't help it, as I didn't make it; but as it was made so, I suppose it wasn't meant to be wasted;" which made the lady smile, though it was a smile that soon faded. Then came a little professional talk, and feeling of pulse, over which the Doctor looked grave. "I'll tell you what it is, madam," he said at length, "you're out of tone and tune. You just go on getting weaker and weaker, and if you don't mind, you'll die from sheer indifference." "I wish I could," she answered, with a sigh. "Oh no, I didn't mean to be so wicked. I know we must live; but, oh dear! life is so empty!" "My patience, madam! do you find it so? I always thought it overcrowded," was on the tip of the Doctor's tongue; but he stopped himself, and said, instead, quite gently, "Life's pretty much what we make it ourselves, I fancy." "And how is the hospital? how is the cot?" asked Mrs. Braithwaite, willing to change the subject. "Oh, going on all right. By-the-way, I'd like you to see the last young one in it. A small monkey that's won all our hearts somehow. And I'm rather bothered about her just now. She's well enough to go out, but not quite well yet either; and the plague is, what's to be done with her. Her parents were respectable people--artists, or such like--but they're both dead, and she hasn't kith nor kin. Where's she to go?" A sudden stiffness came over Mrs. Braithwaite. "I dare say she can go to an orphan asylum," she said; "I think I can get her into one."