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“I am sorry,” said Sam. “I mistook you for one of the nurses here; and, as you didn’t seem busy, I thought you might give me some statistics about the Home not really statistics, you know, but local color.”

Sister Anne returned his look with one as steady as his own. Apparently she was weighing his statement. She seemed to disbelieve it. Inwardly he was asking himself what could be the dark secret in the past of this young woman that at the mere approach of a reporter–even of such a nice-looking reporter as himself–she should shake and shudder. “If that’s what you really want to know,” said Sister Anne doubtfully, “I’ll try and help you; but,” she added, looking at him as one who issues an ultimatum, “you must not say anything about me!”

Sam knew that a woman of the self-advertising, club-organizing class will always say that to a reporter at the time she gives him her card so that he can spell her name correctly; but Sam recognized that this young woman meant it. Besides, what was there that he could write about her? Much as he might like to do so, he could not begin his story with: “The Flagg Home for Convalescents is also the home of the most beautiful of all living women.” No copy editor would let that get by him. So, as there was nothing to say that he would be allowed to say, he promised to say nothing. Sister Anne smiled; and it seemed to Sam that she smiled, not because his promise had set her mind at ease, but because the promise amused her. Sam wondered why.

Sister Anne fell into step beside him and led him through the wards of the hospital. He found that it existed for and revolved entirely about one person. He found that a million dollars and some acres of buildings, containing sun-rooms and hundreds of rigid white beds, had been donated by Spencer Flagg only to provide a background for Sister Anne–only to exhibit the depth of her charity, the kindness of her heart, the unselfishness of her nature.

“Do you really scrub the floors?” he demanded–“I mean you yourself–down on your knees, with a pail and water and scrubbing brush?”

Sister Anne raised her beautiful eyebrows and laughed at him.

“We do that when we first come here,” she said–“when we are probationers. Is there a newer way of scrubbing floors?”

“And these awful patients,” demanded Sam–“do you wait on them? Do you have to submit to their complaints and whinings and ingratitude?” He glared at the unhappy convalescents as though by that glance he would annihilate them. “It’s not fair!” exclaimed Sam. “It’s ridiculous. I’d like to choke them!”

“That’s not exactly the object of a home for convalescents,” said Sister Anne.

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” said Sam. “Here are you–if you’ll allow me to say so–a magnificent, splendid, healthy young person, wearing out your young life over a lot of lame ducks, failures, and cripples.”

“Nor is that quite the way we look at,” said Sister Anne.

“We?” demanded Sam.

Sister Anne nodded toward a group of nurse

“I’m not the only nurse here,” she said “There are over forty.”

“You are the only one here,” said Sam, “who is not! That’s Just what I mean–I appreciate the work of a trained nurse; I understand the ministering angel part of it; but you–I’m not talking about anybody else; I’m talking about you–you are too young! Somehow you are different; you are not meant to wear yourself out fighting disease and sickness, measuring beef broth and making beds.”

Sister Anne laughed with delight.

“I beg your pardon,” said Sam stiffly.

“No–pardon me,” said Sister Anne; “but your ideas of the duties of a nurse are so quaint.”

“No matter what the duties are,” declared Sam; “You should not be here!”

Sister Anne shrugged her shoulders; they were charming shoulders–as delicate as the pinions of a bird.

“One must live,” said Sister Anne.