"Well, how do you like being married _now?_" asked the Senior Surgeon a bit ironically in his work-room that night, after the White Linen Nurse had stood for an hour with evil-smelling washes, and interminable bandages trying to fix that finger the precise, particular way that he thought it ought to be fixed. "Well--how do you like--being married _now?_" he insisted trenchantly. "Oh, I like it all right, sir!" said the White Linen Nurse. A little bit wanly this time she smiled her pluck up into the Senior Surgeon's questioning face. "Oh, I like it all right, sir! Oh, of course, sir," she confided thoughtfully--"Oh, of course, sir--it isn't quite as fancy as being engaged--or quite as free and easy as being--single. But still--" she admitted with desperate honesty--"but still there's a sort of--a sort of a combination importance and--and comfort about it, sir, like a--like a velvet suit--the second year, sir." "Is that--all?" quizzed the Senior Surgeon bluntly. "That's all--so far, sir," said the White Linen Nurse. In November the White Linen Nurse caught a bit of cold that pulled her down a little. But the Senior Surgeon didn't notice it specially among all the virulent ills he lived and worked with from day to day. And then when the cold disappeared, Indian Summer came like a reeking sweat after a chill! And the house _was_ big! And the Little Crippled Girl _was_ pretty difficult to manage now and then! And the Senior Surgeon, no matter how hard he tried not to, did succeed somehow in creating more or less of a disturbance--at least every other day or two! And then suddenly, one balmy gold and crimson Indian Summer morning, standing out on the piazza trying to hear what the Little Crippled Girl was calling from the window and what the Senior Surgeon was calling from the gate, the White Linen Nurse fell right down in her tracks, brutally, bulkily, like a worn-out horse, and lay as she fell, a huddled white heap across the gray piazza. "Oh, Father! Come quick! Come quick! Peach has deaded herself!" yelled the Little Girl's frantic voice. Just with his foot on the step of his car the Senior Surgeon heard the cry and came speeding back up the long walk. Already there before him the Little Girl knelt raining passionate, agonized kisses on her beloved playmate's ghastly white face. "Leave her alone!" thundered the Senior Surgeon. "Leave her alone, I say!" Bruskly he pushed the Little Girl aside and knelt to cradle his own ear against the White Linen Nurse's heart.