"I'S MOUSIE."
Two hours later, as he reached the hospital on his afternoon round, a well-known carriage stood before the door. He smiled as his eye fell upon it, and stole on tip-toe up the stone staircase. Outside the girls' ward he stopped to take an observation.
There by the Daisy Cot sat a lady in a black dress. Her back was toward the door, but a white hand was smoothing back the red-gold rings of Mercy's hair, and a gentle voice said, just as the Doctor came within ear-shot, "And what do they call you, dear?"
The Doctor felt a cold chill go all over him. "Now if the baby says 'Daisy,' it's all up," he gasped.
But surely the same wonderful instinct which made Mercy send the flowers prompted her now; for she looked up with her pretty smile, and the sweet clear voice laughed out, "I's Mousie."
"And would you like to come home with me, and be my little girl, and have pretty toys, and learn to love me?"
"I do love oo," said the little voice again; and the Doctor, who was new to the business of eavesdropping, turned away so abruptly that he ran up against Sister Theresa, and nearly knocked her flat on her back.
"Beg pardon, I'm sure," he said, recovering his balance; "but I know you won't mind, under the circumstances. Mousie has found a home at last, and the Daisy Cot is ready for an incised wound or a compound fracture as soon as you like to put one into it. That's all."