"Do you get it? We don't notice it
_here_ at all."
Then came Miss Lindstroem's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, with
a professional, impersonal cheerfulness. The expedition began. "I'll
take you to the children's ward first," said Miss Lindstroem; "that
always interests visitors so much...."
Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with an
awful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlike
quiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned in
listless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping briskly
about, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly
unrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharp
sudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beating
pulse of low, suppressed sobs....
They were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean bare
corridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes felt burning. Judith held
her mother's hand tightly. Miss Lindstroem was explaining to Mrs.
Marshall a new system of ventilation.
"This is one of the women's wards," said their leader, opening another
swinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. More
rows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with its
haggard face of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape,
bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes.
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