that character are kept; and if it will save you any trouble, I'll gladly
get one of them for you."

"I have already overtaxed your kindness," replied Constance, "and so will
not trouble you in this."

"It would be no trouble."

"Thank you, but I shall enjoy the search myself."

"Say," broke in the urchin. "Youse ought to let de doc do it. Don't youse
see dat he wants to, 'cause he's stuck on youse?"

"Then I'll come to-morrow and read to you, Swot," hastily remarked Miss
Durant, pulling her veil over her face. "Good-bye." Without heeding the
boy's "Dat's fine," or giving Dr. Armstrong a word of farewell, she went
hurrying along the ward, and then downstairs, to her carriage. Yet once
within its shelter, the girl leaned back and laughed merrily. "It's
perfectly absurd for him to behave so before all the nurses and patients,
and he ought to know better. It is to be hoped _that_ was a sufficiently
broad hint for his comprehension, and that henceforth he won't do it."

Yet it must be confessed that the boy's remark frequently recurred that
day to Miss Durant; and if it had no other result, it caused her to devote
an amount of thought to Dr. Armstrong quite out of proportion to the
length of the acquaintance.

Whatever the inward effect, Miss Durant could discover no outward evidence
that Swot's bombshell had moved Dr. Armstrong a particle more than her
less pointed attempts to bring to him a realisation that he was behaving