Patsy felt sorry for Miss Gibb, but she felt no shame. Boarding-house keepers, dressmakers, bootmakers, and the like must take the risk along with the players themselves in the matter of getting paid for their services. If the public--who paid two dollars a seat for a performance--failed to appear, and box-office receipts failed to margin their salaries, it was their misfortune, not their fault; and others had to suffer along with them. But these debts of circumstance never troubled Patsy. She paid them when she could, and when she could not--there was always her trunk. The City Hospital happened to know the extent of Patsy's property; it is their business to find out these little private matters concerning their free patients. They had also drawn certain conclusions from the facts that no one had come to see Patsy and that no communications had reached her from anywhere. It looked to them as if Patsy were down and out, to state it baldly. Now the Patsys that come to free wards of city hospitals are very rare; and the superintendent and staff and nurses were interested beyond the usual limits set by their time and work and the professional hardening of their cardiac region. "She's not to leave here until we find out just who she's got to look after her until she gets on her feet again, understand"--and the old doctor tapped the palm of his left hand with his right forefinger, a sign of important emphasis. Therefore the day nurse had gone to summon the staff while Patsy still sat obediently on the edge of her cot, pulling on her vagabond gloves, reviewing her prospects, and waiting. "My! but we'll miss you!" came the voice from the woman in the next bed, who had been watching her regretfully for some time. "It's my noise ye'll be missing." And Patsy smiled back at her a winning, comrade sort of smile. "You kind o' got us all acquainted with one another and thinkin' about somethin' else but pains and troubles. It'll seem awful lonesome with you gone," and the woman beyond heaved a prodigious sigh. "Don't ye believe it," said Patsy, with conviction. "They'll be fetching in some one a good bit better to fill my place--ye see, just." "No, they won't; 'twill be another dago, likely--" "Whist!" Patsy raised a silencing finger and looked fearsomely over her shoulder to the bed back of her. Its inmate lay covered to the cheek, but one could catch a glimpse of tangled black hair and a swarthy skin. Patsy rose and went softly over to the bed; her movement disturbed the woman, who opened dumb, reproachful eyes. "I'll be gone in a minute, dear; I want just to tell you how sorry I am. But--sure--Mother Mary has it safe--and she's keeping it for ye." She stooped and brushed the forehead with her lips, as the staff and two of the nurses appeared. "Faith! is it a delegation or a constabulary?" And Patsy laughed the laugh that had made her famous from Dublin to Duluth, where the bankruptcy had occurred.