"Certainly." Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to her a little if she wants me to?" "Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think most of the others are sleeping." The little old lady who had just had her appendix out, smiled weakly up at Eleanor. "I hoped 'twould be you," she said, "and then after I'd rung I lay in fear and trembling lest one o' them young flipperti-gibbets should come, and get me all worked up while she was trying to shift me. I want to be turned the least little mite on my left side." "That's better, isn't it?" Eleanor asked, as she made the adjustment. "I dunno whether that's better, or whether it just seems better to me, because 'twas you that fixed me," the little old lady said. "You certainly have got a soothin' and comfortin' way with you." "I used to take care of my grandmother years ago, and the more hospital work I do, the more it comes back to me,--and the better I remember the things that she liked to have done for her." "There's nobody like your own kith and kin," the little old lady sighed. "There's none left of mine. That other nurse--that black haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I pity a young girl alone in the world." "It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you." * * * * * On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story. It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again, and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment. Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general favorite.