Granny 20 was in one of her most garrulous moods, but who was there to listen? She tried to catch a nurse or probationer as they hurried by the end of the bed, with a "Listen to me now, nurse." But a smile and a nod and a "By-and-by, Granny," was all she got for her pains.

Her nearest bed-fellows were too sleepy for anything, and she had to content herself with murmuring to an imaginary audience until Sister had a moment's leisure, and came to her bedside.

"I was saying, Sister, that Mrs. 21 there is one with me. We both rue our wedding-day! And we thought—bless yer!—we thought, when we stood up so proud and made our vows, that we was the luckiest women in the world."

"And it all turned out badly, Granny?"

"Oh, well! It might have been wuss for some of us. I won't say it mightn't; but me was in too much of a hurry—that was the mischief. Why, bless yer! Mrs. 21 there says she wasn't more'n sixteen when she took a 'usband! And me? I was only just turned eighteen. We didn't know no better. We were took by a 'andsome face."

"Well, Granny, I cannot err on the side of marrying too young, whatever I do."

"Sister! You ain't never thinking of matrimoany? Don't 'ee, dear! Don't 'ee! Just take the advice of a old woman what knows. This is what I say. If a man comes to you and seems true enough, don't trust him! No, not if trust was to sparkle like a diamond from the end of every hair on his head, don't trust him!"

Hardly knowing how to contain herself for laughter, Sister promised to be very careful, and thanked Granny for her wise words.

"They aire wise. You may well say so," chuckled the old lady. "Now I could tell you——"

"Another time, Granny dear—and see! Here's nurse with your tea. A cup of tea! There's nothing like it, is there?"

"Bless yer—no!"

And Nurse Hudson—what of her? Had the episode of yesterday's carelessness with the words of reproof that followed been the warning Sister Warwick hoped? The watchful eyes could detect very little that was amiss that day. But she was obliged to acknowledge that the nurse's manner towards herself was not what it should be. With her new efforts not to repel her nurses by the stiffness of her own manners she ignored what she could. Later she felt glad she had done so.

After tea the medicines were given out. It was the staff-nurse's duty to-day, and following the instructions on her chart, Hudson went to and fro, pouring out the draughts, and bringing them to each bed in order.

Sister, seated by No. 10, watched her silently. But when she brought the dose for this "typhoid," she took it from her hand to administer it herself.

What instinct made her pause, before giving it, to ask:

"Is this the new medicine, nurse?"

"Of course it is, Sister!" The tone was offensive, but, ignoring it, Sister Warwick leant forward to hold the glass to the girl's lips. Again she paused. What was it stayed her hand?

She raised the glass, smelt it, and then put it to her own lips and tasted the liquid, her eyes on the chart.

"This is an overdose!" she said sternly. "Here are four times the right amount!"

For she knew in a flash what the nurse had done, and she shuddered at the thought! Hudson had certainly, as she said, given the fresh medicine the chart directed, but in her heedlessness she had not looked to see if the quantity was altered too. She had poured out two tablespoonfuls instead of two teaspoonfuls—a dose that would have caused intense suffering, if nothing worse, to the sick girl.

Sister Warwick rose from her chair and looked Nurse Hudson full in the face. Her utter scorn and indignation at this culpable carelessness rendered her speechless.

But her glance was enough!

Turning on her heel, she carried the medicine-glass into her room, placed it in a cupboard there, and locking it up, removed the key.

Nurse Hudson watched it all—miserable and self-condemned—knowing what the action meant. Now that it was done, she would have given anything to have been more careful. Her colour came and went. She stood irresolute. Her better self was urging her to go at once and with a humble apology plead for another trial with an earnest promise of a different course in the future. But she could not bring herself to do that. Pride and Selfishness had been too closely her companions lately, excluding better impulses.

No, she would not believe that Sister Warwick meant to report her to the Matron. Perhaps she would only ask for her removal to another ward; there she could make a fresh start. But she did not ask herself with what motive.

Nurse Hudson's work had always been tarnished with the discolouring influences of her own low aims. No wonder now that she failed, and did not take the one step that might have saved her nursing career.

She left the ward that evening without another word with the Sister—miserable, self-pitying, undecided, little thinking that she would never enter it again.

"The whole affair shall be stopped at once!" The Matron's voice was full of decision and very stern. "I will send for Hudson and tell her I cannot keep her here any longer. Nor will I sign her certificate! I am not justified, after all you tell me, in sending her away to pass herself off as a qualified nurse."

"You take a harder view of her conduct than I do, Matron." And Sister Warwick then and there began to plead for the nurse who had been such a "thorn in her side."

"You will not move me, Sister! Hudson will go! It will seem right, from many points of view, when you can look at it dispassionately. I am only very thankful that we so rarely have such a failure among the nurses, and thankful most of all that no worse harm has been done. We might have had a case for the coroner."

Sister Warwick knew the Matron's words were just. She left her and went back to her own room, sinking into her leaning-chair with the consciousness that an upset like this "took it out of her" far more than even an operation involving pain and suffering to one of her dear ward babies. And, sad at heart, she began to think of Ellen Hudson's future, then to search back in her own mind for possible opportunities missed in the past when she might have helped her more kindly. She realised bitterly that she herself might have done better too.

She sat forward then and wrote a little note and sent it round to the Nurses' Home, timed to reach Nurse Hudson just after her interview with the Matron.

It was to ask her staff-nurse to come and see her before she left. But she never came. She passed out of Sister Warwick's life from that hour, and her place knew her no more.

Nurse Carden's bright face and ready sympathy were a pleasant interruption to the Sister's mournful ruminations that evening. She came in a little before her usual time, and the two had a quiet chat in the "Sisters' Room" before the night work began.

Here Sister Cumberland joined them. These three women—so different in character, so united in aim and purpose—felt then the sustaining power of a friendship that was standing the wear and tear of life.

Seeing how worried the elder "Sister" was by the present, the other two drew her thoughts back to the past and to their earlier experiences in the ward.

"Do you remember?" was the introduction to many reminiscences Sister Cumberland recalled that night on duty, when she fought her fiercest fight with the craving for sleep.

Nurse Carden talked of Tommie the waif and his whimsical ways. He could not be forgotten, for it was not many days since at the lodge-gate of her own home she had seen the Tommie of to-day. Such a contrast! A sturdy, ruddy, honest country lad, loving his life as a gardener's boy, and always ready, if questioned, to say, "Oh, I belong to Nurse Carden, I do! I ain't got nobody else! But she is good to me, she is!"

So the three talked until the hour struck which took them to their various duties and closed the second of these days my pen has tried to describe—days chosen not because they were remarkably different from many others, but because they give an average picture of the cares and anxieties, the pleasures and interests that belong to a hospital Sister's life; because, too, they tell of an experience that had a lasting effect in softening Sister Warwick's character and in extending her influence over the nurses in her charge.

[THE END.]