"Settin' on a velvet settee you was," whispered Kern, her hand picking at the sheet, "by a founting, a boy with wings and a pink lamp on his head, pourin' water out of a gool' pitcher. And I went runnin' over to you to ast you must I go--or somep'n. And then up comes all the ladies and gempmen and says, 'This girl don't belong here,' they says, 'she must go at once.' And Miss Heth she gets up and says, 'Not at all, this here girl is a friend of me and Doctor's.' And I says, 'No, ma'am, it's right what they say, I don't belong here.' But she says to them to leave me be. 'And do you, Co-rinne,' she says--just that away, like you used to say--'do you, Corinne, come and set on this velvet settee with me and Doctor, and listen to this here founting play.' And I felt sad someways and I says, 'Oh, no, ma'am, it's all a mistake me being here, and these clo'es mustn't belong to a workin'-girl like me. I might go to school some day,' I says, 'and be a writer sort of, mebbe; but I ain't a lady, ma'am, Miss Heth, no, nor never will be.' And Miss Heth she takes my face between her hands--yes, sir, she did, Mr. V.V., right there before 'em all--and she says, kind of surprised, 'Why, Co-rinne, I thought Doctor he told you long ago,' she says. 'You been a lady all the time ...' And then ... and then I woke up!... Wasn't that funny?" said Kern. And her face indicated that she might have told more, if she had had a mind to.... She lay staring, with parted lips and that same remote half-smile, as of one not yet fully returned from fairy wanderings in far lands. She did not seem to expect her inquiry to bring forth any response from the man sitting in the shadows, and it didn't, so far as words went. Mr. V.V.'s fingers had closed over her exposed wrist; presently he put the bony little arm back under the cover, rose, and went over silently to the other gas-jet where the little fixture was. The nurse, who had risen on an elbow at the first sound of voices, had lain down again at the young man's signal. She did not stir now, though perhaps she was not asleep. Mr. V.V. returned to the bed with a cup in his hand. Kern was lying exactly as he had left her--"the wonder was not quite yet gone from that still look of hers." "Drink this, Kernie...." She drank incuriously, with his supporting hand upon her back; was gently lowered upon her pillow again; and then she turned upon her side, wide-eyed still, but silent. "Now, go to sleep. I'll sit here by you...." He noted the fact of beef-tea at twelve-thirty upon the chart, and sat again in the shadows. Soon Kern's eyelids drooped, and in time she fell asleep.