Mrs. Sandford shook her head. She drew to her the books with which she had been busy, and resumed her work. After all, whatever happened, that had to be done. There was nothing in the world except work, in which there was any satisfaction. This was the conclusion she had come to long ago. It was morning, a little before the time when John was to have his audience, and this was how it was prepared. The table was covered with books, reports, accounts, all the records of her occupation, which had fallen into arrears during that forced leave she had been obliged to apply for, to bury her father. The room was very lofty for its size, somewhat barely furnished, with enormous windows and the fullest blaze of daylight, not a line or a corner of shadow anywhere. It was fitted with great cupboards full of stores--and constant use, constant business, was visible in every arrangement. There was nothing for grace or ornament, and not much for comfort--a place not so much to live in as to work in; but this was suitable to a life which was all work. When she resumed her examination of the books, Susie withdrew to a corner, where there was a little table and needlework, her own little place in this chamber and temple of labour. It was not pretty work with which she was occupied. She was making flannel bandages or belts, hemming down the rough edges, rolling them neatly up, ready for use. Susie had grown up in this atmosphere, and knew no other. She had gone through all a nurse’s training, though she had not taken up that profession. When a more tender hand than ordinary was wanted where all were tender, she was called to help. She was always at hand when the strength of the nursing sister was overtaxed. But still she had her own little separate place as the matron’s daughter, a sort of lay element where all were professional. She wore a sort of modified version of their severe black and white dress. Susie’s dress was black too, with white collar and cuffs, but these had sometimes a line of ornament, and she wore a ribbon at her throat, a locket, a bracelet, a few slight marks that she was not under the rule. She was twenty-two, very modest and quiet, sometimes looking older than her age, yet sometimes also looking infantine in the fulness of a life that knew no distractions, nothing but the hospital, the service of others. She was not strictly pretty. Her hair was brown, her eyes brown like most people’s, her complexion generally pale, with a little colour coming and going, nothing in her to be remarked at the first glance, no beauty--but to those who knew her a certain charm, tranquil and pure, the beauty of a spirit absolutely free from any pre-occupations of its own. There are very few people in the world of whom so much can be said, and perhaps their perfection in this moral way means a deficiency in some others, a want of imagination, even a defective vitality: but the human race is not likely to err so, and the