Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/292

282 really neglected the diet kitchen, she spent so much time over "that Hale." One day, early in Joe's convalescence, Clara went to the linen room and called Sarah.

"Come here," she said. "I want to tell you something. You know that splendid fellow, Joe Hale, that's been so ill. Well, he is n't going to die. He's had his senses perfectly clear for two days now, and Dr. Wilkes says he 'll pull through."

"Yes, I know," said Sarah. "I saw him this morning and he knew me perfectly."

"Oh, you saw him, did you?" said Clara, with a little dignified surprise in her manner.

"Oh, yes," said Sarah. "Netty and I have seen him every day."

"Ah!" said Clara, "I did n't know you had been seeing him all along."

Not least among the semi-comic things inwoven with all the tragedy of hospital life, was the queer, sexless sort of jealousy which women unconsciously and perpetually manifested among themselves, in regard to one and another of their pet patients.

Clara continued:—

"Well, I 'm perfectly sure that he is engaged to some girl, or in love with her; and I think she ought to be sent for. Thomas, the ward-master, has been telling me about it. Thomas says that all the time Joe was out of his head, he was talking about a Matilda Somebody. He never made out the other name; but Thomas says he 'd talk