CHAPTER X.
LEARNING LIFE.
Jessica opened her eyes from a strangely pleasant dream. Angels had been hovering around her, as it seemed; but, oddly enough, they had not worn the traditional feathers and wings. Some of them were all in white, with white caps on their heads, and some were clad in blue like the sky from which they must have come. Presently, one of the white angels bade a blue one:
“Hold that cup to her lips. She is reviving.”
When the cup was held, “Little Captain” obediently drank its contents, which proved to be something warm and soothing. Then she drifted away again into a sleep that was dreamless, this time; and from which she again awoke to realize completely what had happened and in what sort of place she was.
The “white angel” was a “head-nurse.” The blue one an undergraduate. She recognized the hospital uniforms from those she had seen in Los Angeles, while Ephraim lay recovering from his broken limb. She was in the children’s ward. Rows of white beds lined each side of the long room, and on each bed rested a child. On the very next cot to her own, with some doctors and more nurses fussing about it, was Sophy Nestor. She heard one of these saying:
“That is quite curable. It would be a most interesting case. After she recovers from this shock I’ll investigate.”
Then that doctor went away and the rest soon followed him, leaving only a sweet-faced woman in blue hovering between the two cots, whereon lay these last “emergency” cases. To her Jessica spoke:
“Is Sophy awake?”
“She is waking. Try not to frighten nor disturb her. How are you feeling?”
“All right. I want to get up and go home. Oh! I forgot! I haven’t any now, but go to my Cousin Margaret, wherever she is. She must be somewhere!”