pretty any more. She was like a little sailboat after the ravages of a storm, ripped bare of its shining white sails and pretty rigging—a sorry little hulk, tossed up on the rocks.
I do not wish to describe that first visit of mine to Elsie. They had allowed me to go into the room during one of the difficult hours of her day. The doctor thought that it might help her to forget her pain if her attention was diverted a little. I don't believe the child knew that I was there, even though, as I approached the bed and took her little claw of a hand in mine, her lips did form my name. I am sure she had no idea of what I talked. At intervals of about two minutes a querulous little voice, unlike Elsie's, inquired, "What time is it, Nurse?" and at each answer I saw her bite her under lip and a quiver run through her body. When she began to whimper like a hurt animal and then to beg like a little child for the nurse to take off the weights, it was more than I could endure. I went into an adjoining room; but even there I could hear her continuous little moan, her pitiful, almost continuous, pleadings.
The nurse who was off duty was with me. "She always gets like this toward the last of the hour. It seems just as if those weights were hung on her nerves. Once we took them off five min-
