Mrs. D. "I'll ask Miss Oaks when I have my hot fomentations this afternoon; she knows everything and she's as generous as a prince with her knowledge." Mrs. G. (patiently). "Just after my youngest child was--" A nurse passes through the grove, bearing a sterilized tray with peptonized preparations on it. Mrs. Y. (calling her). "Nurse! what's the matter with the new man-patient on our floor?" Nurse (discreetly). "I don't know, Mrs. Y." Mrs. X. (as the nurse vanishes). "She does, but she's a stiff thing! Anyway, I heard the attendants whispering about him in the corridor before breakfast. Something--I think it's an organ--is floating about in him." All. "_Floating?_ What kind of an organ? Horrors!" Mrs. X. "I couldn't understand exactly. You know people always roar if they have nothing particular to say, but if it is interesting they whisper. I distinctly heard the word '_floating_.' I don't know whether it's one of his regular organs, or something he swallowed accidentally." Mrs. C. (plaintively). "Doctors are never satisfied. If anything floats they want to get it stationary, and if it's stationary they want to cut it loose." Mrs. G. "_Just after my youngest child_--" Mrs. B. "They say Mrs. H. is going to leave to-morrow; she doesn't like the food or the service." Mrs. E. "Goodness, she has all the service there is on our floor! Nobody else gets a chance! She spends her whole silent hour pushing the electric button." Mrs. D. "Yes, Miss Oaks declares she 'lays' on it. She says that the head nurse told Mrs. H. she must ring less frequently, or the bell would be removed. Miss Oaks says the patients that pay the smallest rates always ring the bells most. It isn't fair that a thirty-dollar patient should annoy a whole row of eighty-dollar ones and prevent their bells from being answered." Mrs. X. "There's nothing made out of Mrs. H. at thirty dollars a week. She was as contented as possible last night, but this morning she wanted her bed in the other corner, awnings put on the windows, and the bureau changed for a chiffonier. Come, we must all go in for treatment--it wants five minutes of four." Mrs. G., in despair, as she sees the occupants of the hammocks dispersing, almost shrieks: "JUST AFTER MY YOUNGEST--" But the ladies, for some reason or other, do not care to hear anything about Mrs. G.'s youngest, and she is obliged to seek another audience. * * * * * Saturday The doctor found me "over-treated" this morning and advised a day of quiet, with a couple of hours on the roof-garden or under the trees. I have heard at various times sighs of weariness or discontent or pain issuing from the room opposite mine, and this afternoon when Miss Blossom had gone into Number 19 to sit with the haughty Mrs. Chittenden-Ffollette I stole across the corridor and glanced in at the half-open door of Number 18.