"'Where there's a will,'" quoted Donald, with inward satisfaction over the fact that his ward had fulfilled his prophecy, and he stole a few minutes out of the busy morning to motor to the Merrimans' apartment to bear the joy-bringing tidings personally to little Rose, whose eyes shone happily and whose lips smiled their thanks, but who--perversely, it seemed to him--gave Miss Merriman the reward which he felt should have been his. Dreams do come true sometimes, if they _are_ true, and so at last arrived a bright May morning when Smiles folded away her little play uniform forever, and--by right of conquest--donned the striped pink and white gingham dress and bibless apron of a probationer, within the doors of the newly built home of that old and worthy institution which had had its inception, more than sixty years before, in the loving heart of Nursing Sister Margaret. There Rose entered into a new life, as different from that of the old physical freedom of the hills, and personal freedom from restraint, as could well be imagined, for, as Donald had told her, she was now mustered, as an untrained recruit, into a great modern army; and discipline is the keynote in war, whether the battle be against evil nations or evil forces. From half after six in the morning until ten at night, when with military precision came "lights out," her life was drawn to pattern. It was not a hardship for her, as with some others, to arise at the early hour; and the brief prayer and singing of the morning hymn, in company with her fifty-odd sister-probationers and pupil nurses, impressed her strongly the first time in which she had part in it, and never failed to strengthen and uplift her for the day's toil. Times were to come aplenty, to be sure, when the old call of untrammelled freedom stirred her senses to mute rebellion; but, as often, her all-absorbed interest in the work silenced it speedily. Right at the outset Rose experienced the same shock which hundreds of other would-be nurses have had. She, mistress of a home for years, was obliged to learn to clean, to scrub, to make a bed! For two whole months of probationary training she had to labor at the bedside or in the classroom, doing the commonplace, practical tasks which, to many, seemed merely unnecessary drudgery; but, if she occasionally felt that Donald's prophecy was coming true with a vengeance, more often her level little head held a prescient understanding of how important this unlovely foundation was to the structure which should some day be built upon it.