Adroitly she slipped both hands under the sleeping child and delivered the little frail-fleshed, heavily ironed body into the Senior Surgeon's astonished arms.
"I—I don't want to hold her," he protested.
"She—isn't mine!" argued the White Linen Nurse.
"But I can't talk while I'm holding her!" insisted the Senior Surgeon.
"I can't listen—while I'm holding her!" persisted the White Linen
Nurse.
Freely now, though cross-legged like a Turk, she jerked herself forward on the grass and sat probing up into the Senior Surgeon's face like an excited puppy trying to solve whether the gift in your up-raised hand is a lump of sugar—or a live coal.
"You're trying to hire—me?" she prompted him nudgingly with her voice. "Hire me—for money?"
"Oh my Lord, no!" said the Senior Surgeon. "There are plenty of people I can hire for money! But they won't stay!" he explained ruefully. "Hang it all,—they won't stay!" Above his little girl's white, pinched face his own ruddy countenance furrowed suddenly with unspeakable anxiety.
"Why, just this last year," he complained, "we've had nine different housekeepers—and thirteen nursery governesses!" Skilfully as a surgeon, but awkwardly as a father, he bent to re-adjust the weight of the little iron leg-braces. "But I tell you—no one will stay with us!" he finished hotly. "There's—something the matter—with us! I don't seem to have money enough in the world to make anybody—stay with us!"
Very wryly, very reluctantly, at one corner of his mouth his sense of humor ignited in a feeble grin.