Street; but his reply was prompt:     

       “Any amount of time.”      

       Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused by the petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.     

       “First of all,” said Sidney, “did you mean what you said upstairs?”      

       Dr. Ed thought quickly.     

       “Of course; but what?”      

       “You said I was a born nurse.”      

       The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him. It said—which was perfectly true—that he had sacrificed himself to his brother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon, Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroad he had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the old buggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, not at all of the stuff martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and, remembering all this, was ashamed of her rebellion.     

       “I'm going into a hospital,” said Sidney.     

       Dr. Ed waited. He liked to have all the symptoms before he made a diagnosis or ventured an opinion. So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, and quite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.     

       “It's fearfully hard work, of course,” he commented, when she had finished.     

       “So is anything worth while. Look at the way you work!”      

       Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.     

       “You're too young.”      

       “I'll get older.”      

       “I don't think I like the idea,” he said at last. “It's splendid work for an older woman. But it's life, child—life in the raw. As we get along in years we lose our illusions—some of them, not all, thank God. But for you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things as they are, and not as we want them to be—it seems such an unnecessary       

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