“Why do you come?” asked Joan. Mrs. Phillips was sitting up in an easy chair near the heavily-curtained windows when Joan arrived. It was a pleasant little house in the old part of the town, and looked out upon the harbour. She was startlingly thin by comparison with what she had been; but her face was still painted. Phillips would run down by the afternoon train whenever he could get away. She never knew when he was coming, so she explained; and she could not bear the idea of his finding her “old and ugly.” She had fought against his wish that she should go into a nursing home; and Joan, who in the course of her work upon the Nursing Times had acquired some knowledge of them as a whole, was inclined to agree with her. She was quite comfortable where she was. The landlady, according to her account, was a dear. She had sent the nurse out for a walk on getting Joan’s wire, so that they could have a cosy chat. She didn’t really want much attendance. It was her heart. It got feeble now and then, and she had to keep very still; that was all. Joan told how her father had suffered for years from much the same complaint. So long as you were careful there was no danger. She must take things easily and not excite herself.!

“I think she could,” answered Joan, “if she would pull herself together. It’s her lack of will-power that’s the trouble.” “You’re the right sort to put ’eart into a body. I’m glad I came up,” said Mrs. Phillips. “I get a bit down in the mouth sometimes when ’e goes off into one of ’is brown studies, and I don’t seem to know what ’e’s thinking about. But it don’t last long. I was always one of the light-’earted ones.”

He rose slowly from a high-backed chair beside the fire. “Nothing better could have happened,” she was of opinion. “It means that their hearts are in it.” “Oh, about as much as there always is wherever men and women work together,” answered Madge. “It’s a nuisance, but it has to be faced.”