Miriam glanced fearfully about. There were so many beds with forms seated and lying upon them ... but there seemed no illness or pain. Quiet eyes met hers; everything seemed serene; there was no sound but the strange silent noise of the sunlight and the flowers. Half way down the ward stood a large three-fold screen covered with dark American cloth. "She's unconscious today," said Miss Dear; "she won't last through the night." "Do you mean to say there is someone _dying_ there?" "_Yes de_-er." "Do you mean to say they don't put them into a separate room to _die_?" "They can't dear. They haven't got the _space_" flashed Miss Dear. * * * * * Death shut in with one lonely person. Brisk nurses putting up the screen. Dying eyes cut off from all but those three dark surrounding walls, with death waiting inside them. Miriam's eyes filled with tears. There, just across the room, was the end. It had to come somewhere; just that; on any summer's afternoon ... people did things; hands placed a screen, people cleared you away.... It was a relief to realise that there were hospitals to die in; worry and torture of mind could end here. Perhaps it might be easier with people all round you than in a little room. There were hospitals to be ill in and somewhere to die neatly, however poor you were. It was a relief ... "she's always the last to get up; still snoring when everybody's fussing and washing." That would be me ... it lit up the hostel. Miss Dear liked that time of fussing and washing in company with all the other cubicles fussing and washing. To be very poor meant getting more and more social life with no appearances to keep up, getting up each day with a holiday feeling of one more day and the surprise of seeing everybody again; and the certainty that if you died somebody would do something. Certainly it was this knowledge that gave Miss Dear her peculiar strength. She was a nurse and knew how everything was done. She knew that people, all kinds of people were _people_ and would do things. When one was quite alone one could not believe this. Besides no one _would_ do anything for me. I don't want anyone to. I should hate the face of a nurse who put a screen round my bed. I shall not die like that. I shall die in some other way, out in the sun, with--yes--oh yes--Tah-dee, t'_dee_, t'dee--t'dee. "It must be funny for a nurse to be in a hospital." "It's a little too funny sometimes dear--you know too much about what you're in for." "Ilikeyourredjacket. Good _Heavens_!" "That's nothing dear. He does that all the afternoon." "How can you stand it?" "It's Hobson's choice, madam." The parrot uttered three successive squawks fuller and harsher and even more shrill than the first. "He's just tuning up; he always does in the afternoon just as everybody is trying to get a little sleep." "But I never _heard_ of such a thing! It's monstrous, in a hospital. Why don't you all complain."