“Nothing very wonderful in that, if you believe that the hairs of our heads are all numbered, and that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Father’s knowledge. But what do you mean? Have you met your fate in the hero of Granada?” “No, no! Nothing in the least romantic, but I have decided on my mission in life; you know I have been a long time on the look-out for it.” “I always thought your mission, dear, was to make everyone the happier for having come in contact with you.” “Ah, but you are an infatuated auntie, you know, and have always spoiled me, as papa did; but aren’t you anxious to know what I am going to be?” “Something quixotic, Millie, to suit our surroundings. It is the _couleur locale_ which has dazzled you; the romance of the Alhambra is too much for you. Is it a novelist or a poet? Don’t dear; the market is overstocked. Now, domestic service offers a grand field.” “But I don’t feel it to be my vocation. I shall set to work to revolutionise the system of our great hospitals. I have seen enough to-day to convince me that, as at present constituted, they do as much harm as good.” “Revolutionise the hospitals! Isn’t that rather ‘a large order?’” “Weaker women than I have done greater things than this; and then remember, auntie dear, the lines— ‘And none are strong but who confess With happy skill that they are weak.’ Besides, don’t you think the public is almost ready for a revolution on this question?” “You know, Mildred, my opinion; but I never could see my way clear to any interference with hospitals. It is a terrible responsibility, don’t you think?” “Poor papa has often declared to me that the public would one day wake up to the fact that the hospital was one of the great shams of the time.” “I know, dear. But St. Bernard’s having made your papa’s fame and fortune, isn’t it rather a shame to upset the concern?” “I have no desire to upset anything. Don’t you remember how we rebuilt our parish church at Welby, without stopping the services for a single day? That is what I want to do in this case.” “I don’t quite follow you, dear.” “Well, of course I haven’t formed any complete scheme yet; but I have often thought that what we want in London, for instance, is a sort of Hospital University, with a great number of affiliated colleges of healing. Not a great unwieldy Cathedral of Surgery as they call it, here and there, but a ‘Chapel of Ease’ at every sufferer’s door. Fifty beds should be the limit, I think.” “Not enough. Don’t you know the examining bodies do not recognise as a teaching hospital one with less than two hundred beds?” “But I am concerned with healing the sick, not with teaching students.” “Just so; but where are your future doctors to come from if you cut off their only way of learning their business?”