"
Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "I don't
see that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in a
recalcitrant voice. She stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on the
sidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. She had a sudden vision of the
white-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of Aunt
Victoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass,
the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted
life--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids....
"Here we are at the hospital," said Mrs. Marshall, a perplexed line
of worry between her brows. But at once she was swept out of herself,
forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of a
girl like Sylvia. She was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noble
spectacle. She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed facade
above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks across
the street, and her dark eyes kindled. "A hospital is one of the most
wonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "All
this--to help people get well!"
They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desk
nodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. There
was an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet rather
uncomfortably pungent. "Oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the
desk, hearing them comment on it.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184