“‘A High School education or its—­equivocation’ is what we girls call it,” confessed the White Linen Nurse demurely.  “But even so, sir,” she pleaded, “it isn’t just my lack of education!  It’s my brains!  I tell you, sir, I haven’t got enough brains to do what you suggest!”

“I don’t mean at all to belittle your brains,” grinned the Senior Surgeon in spite of himself.  “Oh, not at all, Miss Malgregor!  But you see it isn’t especially brains that I’m looking for!  Really what I need most,” he acknowledged frankly, “is an extra pair of hands to go with the—­brains I already possess!”

“Yes, I know, sir,” persisted the White Linen Nurse.  “Yes, of course, sir,” she conceded.  “Yes, of course, sir, my hands work—­awfully—­well—­with your face.  But all the same,” she kindled suddenly, “all the same, sir, I can’t!  I won’t!  I tell you sir, I won’t!  Why, I’m not in your world, sir!  Why, I’m not in your class!  Why—­my folks aren’t like your folks!  Oh, we’re just as good as you—­of course—­but we aren’t as nice!  Oh, we’re not nice at all!  Really and truly we’re not!” Desperately through her mind she rummaged up and down for some one conclusive fact that would close this torturing argument for all time.  “Why—­my father—­eats with his knife,” she asserted triumphantly.

“Would he be apt to eat with mine?” asked the Senior Surgeon with extravagant gravity.

Precipitously the White Linen Nurse jumped to the defense of her father’s intrinsic honor.  “Oh, no!” she denied with some vehemence.  “Father’s never cheeky like that!  Father’s simple sometimes,—­plain, I mean.  Or he might be a bit sharp.  But, oh, I’m sure he’d never be—­cheeky!  Oh, no, sir!  No!”

“Oh, very well then,” grinned the Senior Surgeon.  “We can consider everything all comfortably settled then I suppose?”

“No, we can’t!” screamed the White Linen Nurse.  A little awkwardly with cramped limbs she struggled partly upward from the grass and knelt there defying the Senior Surgeon from her temporarily superior height.  “No, we can’t!” she reiterated wildly.  “I tell you I can’t, sir!  I won’t!  I won’t!  I’ve been engaged once and it’s enough!  I tell you, sir, I’m all engaged out!”

“What’s become of the man you were engaged to?” quizzed the Senior Surgeon sharply.

“Why—­he’s married!” said the White Linen Nurse.  “And they’ve got a kid!” she added tempestuously.

“Good!  I’m glad of it!” smiled the Senior Surgeon quite amazingly.  “Now he surely won’t bother us any more.”

“But I was engaged so long!” protested the White Linen Nurse.  “Almost ever since I was born, I said.  It’s too long.  You don’t get over it!”

“He got over it,” remarked the Senior Surgeon laconically.

“Y-e-s,” admitted the White Linen Nurse.  “But I tell you it doesn’t seem decent.  Not after being engaged—­twenty years!” With a little helpless gesture of appeal she threw out her hands.  “Oh, can’t I make you understand, sir?”