for a fortune. Dr. Carmon was not married; he had no wife and children to tie him down to a fortune. But a hospital equipped to his fingers' ends was a different matter and he had accepted it gratefully.

Dr. Carmon had not always found it easy to get on with the surgical staff of his old hospital; partly perhaps, as Aunt Jane always maintained, because he was "too fond of having his own way"; and partly because he was of the type that must break ground. There were things that Dr. Carmon saw and wanted to do. And there was always a flock of malcontents at hand to peck at him if he did them.

He accepted the Berkeley House of Mercy with a sense of relief and with the understanding that he was to be in absolute control. And he in turn had installed Aunt Jane as matron of the hospital—not with the understanding that she was to be in absolute control, but as being, on the whole, the most sensible woman of his acquaintance.

The result had not been altogether what Dr. Carmon had foreseen. Gradually he had awakened to the fact that the hospital and everything connected with it was under the absolute control—not of Dr. Frederic Carmon, but of Aunt Jane Holbrook. Each member of the white-capped corps of nurses looked to her for direction; and the cook and the man who ran the furnace refused to take orders from any one else. It was no unusual sight for the serene, white-framed face, with its crisp strings, to appear among the pipes and elbows of the furnace-room and leave behind it a whiff of common sense and a series of hints on the running of the hot-water boiler. Even Dr. Carmon himself never brought a patient to the House of Mercy without asking humble and solicitous permission of Aunt Jane. It was not known that she had ever refused him, pointblank. But she sometimes protested with a shrewd twinkle in her eye: "Oh, I can't have that Miss Enderby here. She's always wanting to have her own way about things!" Then Dr. Carmon would laugh and bring the patient. Perhaps he gave her a hint beforehand. Perhaps the fame of Aunt Jane's might had reached her. Perhaps it was the cool, firm fingers.... Whatever the reason, it is safe to say that Miss Enderby did not once have her own way from the day that she was carried into the wide doors of the House of Mercy, a sick and querulous woman, to the day when she left it with firm, quick step and, turning back at the door to fall with a sob on Aunt Jane's neck, was met with a gentle little push and a quick flash from the white-capped face. "There, there, Miss Enderby, you run right along. There's nothin' upsets folks like sayin' good-by. You come back some day and say it when you're feeling pretty well."

III

Aunt Jane was thinking, as she went along the wide corridor to Room 15, that the new patient was not unlike Miss Enderby.

It was an hour since the operation and Aunt Jane had been in to see the patient two or three times; as she had stood looking down at her, the resemblance to Miss Enderby had come to her mind. There was the same inflexible tightening of the lips and the same contracted look of the high, level brows.

A nurse coming down the corridor stopped respectfully.

"Dr. Carmon has finished his visits," she said. "He asks me to say he is in your office—when you are ready."

Aunt Jane nodded absently. She went on to Room 15 and looked in at the door. The patient lay with closed eyes, a half-querulous expression on the high brows, and the corners of her lips sharply drawn. Aunt Jane crossed the floor lightly and bent to listen to the breathing from the tense lips.

The eyes opened slowly. "It's you!" said the woman.

"Comfortable?" asked Aunt Jane. She ran her hand along the querulous forehead and straightened the clothes a little. "You'll feel better pretty soon now."

"Stay with me," said the woman sharply.

Aunt Jane shook her head: "I'll be back by and by. You lie still and be good. That's the way to get well."

She drifted from the room and the woman's eyes closed slowly. Something of the fretted look had left her face.

Aunt Jane stepped out into the wide, sun-lit corridor and moved serenely on. Her tall figure and plump back had a comfortable look as she went.

One of the men in the ward had said that Aunt Jane went on casters; and it was the Irishman in the bed next him who had retorted: "It's wings that you mean—two little wings to the feet of her—or however could she get along, at all, without putting foot to the floor!"

However she managed it, Aunt Jane came and went noiselessly; and when she chose, she could move from one end of the corridor to the other as swiftly as if indeed there had been "two little wings to the feet of her."

She was not hurrying now. She stopped at one or two doors for a glance, gave directions to a nurse who passed with a tray, and went leisurely on to the office.

Over by the window, Dr. Carmon, his gloves in his hand, was standing with his back to the room, waiting.

Aunt Jane glanced at the back and sat down. "Did you want to see me?" she inquired pleasantly.

He wheeled about. "I have been waiting five minutes to see you," he said stiffly.

"The man in Number 20 is coming along first-rate," replied Aunt Jane. "I never saw a better first intention."

The doctor glared at her. His face cleared a little. "He is doing well."

"I want you to put Miss Wildman on the case," he added.

"She's put down to go on at eleven," responded Aunt Jane.

"Humph!" He drew out his note-book and looked at it. "I suppose you knew I'd want her."

"I thought she'd better go on," said Aunt Jane serenely.

"And Miss Canfield needs to go off—for a good rest. I shall need her on Tuesday. There are two cases"—he consulted his notes—"a Mrs. Pelton—she'll go into the ward—after a few days."

"Poor," said Aunt Jane.

"Yes. And Herman G. Medfield——"

"He's not poor," interposed Aunt Jane. "He could give us a new wing for contagion when he gets well."

The doctor scowled a little. Perhaps it was the unconscious "us." Perhaps he was thinking that Herman G. Medfield had scant chance to give the new wing for contagion.... And a sudden sense that a great deal depended on him and that he was very tired had perhaps come over the surgeon.

Aunt Jane touched the bell by her table. "You sit down, Dr. Carmon," she said quietly.

Dr. Carmon picked up his hat. "I have to go," he replied brusquely.

"You sit down," said Aunt Jane.

He seated himself with a half smile. When Aunt Jane chose to make you like what she was doing...!

The white-coated boy who came, took an order for meat broth and sandwiches and returned with them promptly.

"You're tired out," said Aunt Jane, as she arranged the dishes on the swing-leaf to the desk. "Up all night, I suppose?"

"No." The doctor nibbled at a sandwich. Then he broke off a generous piece and swallowed it and drank a little of the hot broth.

She watched him placidly.

He was a short, dark man with a dark mustache that managed, somehow, at once to bristle and to droop. His clothes were shabby and creased with little folds and wrinkles across the ample front, and he sat well forward in his chair to eat the sandwiches.

There was something a little grotesque about him perhaps.

But to Aunt Jane's absent-minded gaze, it may be, there was nothing grotesque in the short, stout figure, eating its sandwiches....