"Clarissa!" exclaimed Lois, and then with her sight restored she turned quickly about to meet the smiling gaze of her old classmate.
"I knew you were coming soon to visit Julia, but I had no idea that it would be so soon."
"I hope that you are not disappointed," rejoined Clarissa. "I hurried on account of this wonderful prize-day. But how did you manage to play hide-and-seek with me in Cuba. By rights we should have met at the bedside of some soldier, or at least on the hospital ship. Tell me, now, wasn't it great, to feel that one was actually saving life?" and then and there the two friends sat down on the lowest stair and began to talk over all they had gone through during the past few months, regardless of the wondering glances of the girls who passed on their way up and down.
Lois, however, spoke less cheerfully of her experiences. She had happened to help attend to a number of extremely pathetic cases, and on the whole her work had touched her very deeply. A general improvement in Miss Ambrose's condition had enabled her to accept with a clear conscience an opportunity that had come to her for a brief term of service as nurse, and her family had put no further obstacles in her way. But on the whole, though glad that she had been able to help, she had found that she shrank from certain details of the work. An observer would not have imagined this condition of mind in Lois, for her hand was always steady, her mind always alert for every change in her patient, and she was unsparing of herself. But she had learned from her experience that it would be wiser for her to shape her future studies toward a scientific career, rather than in the direction of the active practice of medicine. To have attained this self-knowledge was worth a great deal to her.
On the other hand, nursing had strengthened Clarissa in her zeal for personal service, and she had decided to add to her Red Cross training a regular hospital course for nurses.
In the midst of their eager conversation the two friends suddenly were recalled to the present by seeing Julia at the head of the stairs.
"What a lowly seat you have chosen!" she cried. "But do go into the study; I'll be there in a moment."
When she joined them Lois apologized for having come so early.
"You wrote me that this was to be the most remarkable prize-day you had ever had, and I thought that I might make myself useful by arriving this morning. But if you tell me that I am in the way, I'll bear the reproof for the sake of the pleasure I've had in meeting Clarissa. I had not realized that her visit to you had already begun."
"Oh, we didn't tell you purposely. We wished to surprise you," and then the conversation drifted naturally to their Radcliffe days.