As I go singing, to my dear, "Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here, And Love is Lord of you and me!" Just for an instant a dozen long-forgotten pictures lanced themselves poignantly into his brain,--dingy, uncontrovertible old recitation rooms where young ideas flashed bright and futile as parade swords,--elm-shaded slopes where lithe young bodies lolled on green velvet grasses to expound their harshest cynicisms! Book-history, book-science, book-economics, book-love,--all the paper passion of all the paper poets swaggering imperiously on boyish lips that would have died a thousand bashful deaths before the threatening imminence of a real girl's kiss! Magic days, with Youth the one glittering, positive treasure on the Tree of Life--and Woman still a mystery! "Woman a mystery?" Harshly the phrase ripped through the Senior Surgeon's brain. Croakingly in that instant all the grim gray scientific years re-overtook him, swamped him, strangled him. "Woman a _mystery_? Oh ye Gods! And Youth? Bah! Youth,--a mere tinsel tinkle on a rotting Christmas tree!" Furiously with renewed venom he turned and threw his weight again upon the stubbornly resistant crank of his automobile. Vaguely disturbed by the noise and vibration the White Linen Nurse opened her big, drowsy, blue eyes upon him. "Don't--jerk--it--so!" she admonished hazily, "You'll wake the Little Girl!" "Well, what about my convenience, I'd like to know?" snapped the Senior Surgeon in some astonishment. Heavily the White Linen Nurse's lashes shadowed down again across her sleep-flushed cheeks. "Oh, never mind--about--that," she mumbled non-concernedly. "Oh, for Heaven's sake--wake up there!" bellowed the Senior Surgeon above the sudden roar of his engine. Adroitly for a man of his bulk he ran around the radiator and jumped into his seat. Joggled unmercifully into wakefulness, the Little Girl greeted his return with a generous if distinctly non-tactful demonstration of affection. Grabbing the unwitting fingers of his momentarily free hand she tapped them proudly against the White Linen Nurse's plump pink cheek. "See! I call her 'Peach'!" she boasted joyously with all the triumphant air of one who felt assured that mental discrimination such as this could not possibly fail to impress even a person so naturally obtuse as--a father. "Don't be foolish!" snarled the Senior Surgeon. "Who? Me?" gasped the White Linen Nurse in a perfect agony of confusion. "Yes! You!" snapped the Senior Surgeon explosively half an hour later after interminable miles of absolute silence--and dingy yellow field-stubble--and bare brown alder bushes.