The nurses sang:-"O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day."
The wheel-chairs and convalescents quavered the familiar words. Dr. Ed's
heavy throat shook with earnestness.
The Head, sitting a little apart with her hands folded in her lap and weary
with the suffering of the world, closed her eyes and listened.
The Christmas morning had brought Sidney half a dozen gifts. K. sent her a
silver thermometer case with her monogram, Christine a toilet mirror. But
the gift of gifts, over which Sidney's eyes had glowed, was a great box of
roses marked in Dr. Max's copper-plate writing, "From a neighbor."
Tucked in the soft folds of her kerchief was one of the roses that
afternoon.
Services over, the nurses filed out. Max was waiting for Sidney in the
corridor.
"Merry Christmas!" he said, and held out his hand.
"Merry Christmas!" she said. "You see!"--she glanced down to the rose she
wore. "The others make the most splendid bit of color in the ward."
"But they were for you!"
"They are not any the less mine because I am letting other people have a
chance to enjoy them."
Under all his gayety he was curiously diffident with her. All the pretty
speeches he would have made to Carlotta under the circumstances died before
her frank glance.
There were many things he wanted to say to her. He wanted to tell her that
he was sorry her mother had died; that the Street was empty without her;
that he looked forward to these daily meetings with her as a holy man to
his hour before his saint. What he really said was to inquire politely
whether she had had her Christmas dinner.
Sidney eyed him, half amused, half hurt.
"What have I done, Max? Is it bad for discipline for us to be good
friends?"
"Damn discipline!" said the pride of the staff.
Carlotta was watching them from the chapel. Something in her eyes roused
the devil of mischief that always slumbered in him.
"My car's been stalled in a snowdrift downtown since early this morning,
and I have Ed's Peggy in a sleigh. Put on your things and come for a
ride."
He hoped Carlotta could hear what he said; to be certain of it, he
maliciously raised his voice a trifle.
"Just a little run," he urged. "Put on your warmest things."
Sidney protested. She was to be free that afternoon until six o'clock; but
she had promised to go home.