completed parcel with inordinate scientific precision in the exact
corner of her packing-box, and then went on very diligently, very
zealously, to strip the men's photographs from the mirror on her bureau.
There were twenty-seven photographs in all, and for each one she had
already cut and prepared a small square of perfectly fresh, perfectly
immaculate white tissue wrapping-paper. No one so transcendently
fastidious, so exquisitely neat, in all her personal habits had ever
trained in that particular hospital before.

Very soberly the doll-faced girl stood watching the men's pleasant
paper countenances smooth away one by one into their chaste white
veilings, until at last quite without warning she poked an accusing,
inquisitive finger directly across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder.

"Zillah!" she demanded peremptorily. "All the year I've wanted to know!
All the year every other girl in our class has wanted to know! Where did
you ever get that picture of the Senior Surgeon? He never gave it to you
in the world! He didn't! He didn't! He's not that kind!"

Deeply into Zillah Forsyth's pale, ascetic cheek dawned a most amazing
dimple. "Sort of jarred you girls some, didn't it," she queried, "to see
me strutting round with a photo of the Senior Surgeon?" The little cleft
in her chin showed suddenly with almost startling distinctness. "Well,
seeing it's you," she grinned, "and the year's all over, and there's
nobody left that I can worry about it any more, I don't mind telling you
in the least that I--bought it out of a photographer's show-case!
There! Are you satisfied now?"

With easy nonchalance she picked up the picture in question and
scrutinized it shrewdly.