no brighter reason than that we couldn't have threaded it ourselves if
we'd had all eternity before us and--all creation bleeding to death?"

"Y-e-s, sir," said Rae Malgregor.

Quite bluntly the Senior Surgeon reached out and lifted one of her hands
to his scowling professional scrutiny.

"Gad!" he attested. "What a hand! You're a wonder! Under proper
direction you're a wonder! It was like myself working with twenty
fingers and no thumbs! I never saw anything like it!"

Almost boyishly the embarrassed flush mounted to his cheeks as he jerked
away again. "Excuse me for not recognizing you," he apologized gruffly.
"But you girls all look so much alike!"

As though the eloquence of Heaven itself had suddenly descended upon a
person hitherto hopelessly tongue-tied, Rae Malgregor lifted an utterly
transfigured face to the Senior Surgeon's grimly astonished gaze.

"Yes! Yes, sir!" she cried joyously. "That's just exactly what the
trouble is! That's just exactly what I was trying to express, sir! My
face is all worn out trying to 'look alike'! My cheeks are almost sprung
with artificial smiles! My eyes are fairly bulging with unshed tears! My
nose aches like a toothache trying never to turn up at anything! I'm
smothered with the discipline of it! I'm choked with the affectation! I
tell you--I just can't breathe through a trained nurse's face any more!
I tell you, sir, I'm sick to death of being nothing but a type. I want
to look like _myself_! I want to see what Life could do to a silly face
like mine--if it ever got a chance! When other women are crying, I want