ITH so many willing hearts and hands at their service, it had been an easy matter to convert the chapel into a hospital; but now that it was converted, where was the money to come from to run it? The surgeon had said he thought it would be fully two weeks before the captain, and the two men who had been most badly hurt, would be about again, and in the meantime there were medicines to be bought and food to be provided for the entire party. Sister Julia knew well enough that there was no money to spare for the purpose in Moorlow, and they could hope for no remuneration from the poor sailors. With the wreck of his vessel and his cargo the captain himself had lost everything, and he had told Sister Julia “he had not even a penny left to go toward paying off his crew.”
So it happened one afternoon, a day or two after the wreck, that Sister Julia, wrapping a shawl about her, left her patients in charge of her assistants, and went out on the beach to get a breath of fresh air, and try and think her way out of this money difficulty.
She had not gone far before she heard voices behind her, and turned to see Mr. Vale, with Regie and Harry and Nan, hurrying after her. They had hold of hands, and, stretched in one long line, looked like quite a formidable little party, as they came toward her.
“We have come to take you prisoner for neglect of duty,” said Mr. Vale, as the line formed into a circle and shut her in.
“Not exactly neglect of duty,” laughed Sister Julia; “my thoughts are all with the hospital. I have been racking my poor brain to know where the money is to come from to support our patients up yonder.”