“If I ever get time to have a dress made, I'll surely go.”
Toward six o'clock the next morning, the night nurse was making out her reports. On one record, which said at the top, “Grace Irving, age 19,” and an address which, to the initiated, told all her story, the night nurse wrote:—
“Did not sleep at all during night. Face set and eyes staring, but complains of no pain. Refused milk at eleven and three.”
Carlotta Harrison, back from her vacation, reported for duty the next morning, and was assigned to E ward, which was Sidney's. She gave Sidney a curt little nod, and proceeded to change the entire routine with the thoroughness of a Central American revolutionary president. Sidney, who had yet to learn that with some people authority can only assert itself by change, found herself confused, at sea, half resentful.
Once she ventured a protest:—
“I've been taught to do it that way, Miss Harrison. If my method is wrong, show me what you want, and I'll do my best.”
“I am not responsible for what you have been taught. And you will not speak back when you are spoken to.”
Small as the incident was, it marked a change in Sidney's position in the ward. She got the worst off-duty of the day, or none. Small humiliations were hers: late meals, disagreeable duties, endless and often unnecessary tasks. Even Miss Grange, now reduced to second place, remonstrated with her senior.
“I think a certain amount of severity is good for a probationer,” she said, “but you are brutal, Miss Harrison.”
“She's stupid.”