"Still, this cloud, like all clouds, has its bright lining. _He is coming home_, just as soon as he is able to make the trip, so, although I shall miss him dreadfully to-morrow, it will not be many weeks before I shall see him again. "But this is not all that is troubling me, diary, and if I were not quite sure that no one but I would ever look inside your covers, I would not confide it even to you. "I have a present, a wonderful present,--and I do not think that I ought to keep it. Help me make up my mind. When P. gave it to me this afternoon, he said that it was just a little remembrance for my graduation and that he hoped I would accept it as the gift of a semiofficial guardian, just as I would if Donald himself were giving it to me. I did take it in that spirit; but, when I found a moment to steal away and open the wrapper, and beheld a beautiful morocco case containing a _gold watch_ with my initials engraved on the case, my heart almost stopped beating. This was his 'little remembrance.' Of course it is something that I shall need in my work, for it has a second hand, but he must have guessed that I would be troubled by such an expensive gift, for he tried to make light of it by enclosing a foolish little rhyme, which I must copy so that I shall not forget it. 'When it is _time_ to take _hour_ pulse You'll find a use for what is in it,[A] (On _second_ thoughts, I'd like to add I wish you'd take mine every _minute_.)' "Conventions are _so_ puzzling, little diary, that I don't know what I ought to do. Somehow, I feel quite sure that the Superintendent wouldn't approve, for a doctor should not be making presents to a pupil nurse; yet P. has been so kind that I hate to think of hurting his feelings by giving it back. Besides, I love it ... and it is engraved R. W. Then, too, if I should return it, he might think that I didn't credit him with having done it while acting in Donald's place as my guardian, and if it was not that thought which prompted him, why ... Oh, I don't know what to do! "Worse still, Dorothy Roberts came up unexpectedly and saw the watch. Of course she wanted to know from whom it came and I answered, on the impulse, 'From my guardian.' I'm sure that she believes that it was a present from Donald and therefore perfectly proper, for I have told her all about his relationship to me, and it hurts me to think that I have been guilty of a lie. Of course it wasn't one in actual words, perhaps; but I had the spirit to deceive, and now I can't confess without involving P. and she might think that he is in ... Oh, I can't write it, for of course he isn't. How could he be? No, it was just a natural act of his generous heart, because he knew that I was without relatives to give me a graduation gift. "I hope that I sleep my uncertainties away, for to-morrow must hold nothing but sunshine and smiles." [Footnote A: Poetical license--meaning 'what is in the box.'] CHAPTER XXVIII "BUT A ROSE HAS THORNS"