on the top floor of the children’s house of joy was the most beautiful hospital ward in the whole world. when mrs. gresham was completing her plans for the institution polly dudley was often called into consultation, and it was decided to give the prettiest ward to those children that were ill with incurable diseases. mrs. gresham had ordered many appurtenances which dr. dudley called foolish extravagance, but in which she and polly reveled, anticipating the delight of the little unfortunates for whom they were devised.

“what shall we call it when it is done?” mrs. gresham had said one day, as she and polly were overseeing the final touches to the wonderful apartment.

“if i have my way,” polly had declared, “it shan’t have one letter of ‘incurable’ in its name.”

“you can have your way,” mrs. gresham had asserted. “and you must hit upon something soon, if i’m to get any sleep. last night i lay awake full three hours muddling my brain over it, and then i couldn’t think of anything half pretty enough.”

“something has just come to me!” polly had cried; “but maybe you won’t like it. what do you say to ‘paradise ward’?”

[33] at that mrs. gresham’s delicate hands had clapped the softest of applause, and the ward was named.

paradise ward was indeed a marvel of beauty, from the fairy stories in fresco upon the walls to the dainty little fountains that sent music and perfume throughout the apartment. there were the cushioned rolling chairs with the dearest little tables and pockets that held dolls and toys and picture books of just the right size for frail little hands. there were cages of charming love birds that never wearied one with piercing songs. there were the little white-and-gold beds, with lilies and roses at head and foot, blooms that never faded or grew limp with age; there were small bookcases that one might whirl and whirl and find the very book that was wanted; there was a glass-doored cupboard that held the loveliest of little and middling-sized china plates and cups and saucers, just big enough for small people to eat from, and they had wreaths of pansies and sprays of checkerberries, for one to look at while eating. then, there were the dearest, littlest dishes for the dollies, too, so that they could eat their dinners with their mammas—oh, wonderful things could be found in those pretty cupboards! plants and vines grew and bloomed all over the big room, and clocks!—such delightful clocks! in one lived a cuckoo that came outside every half-hour, just long enough to tell its name. and there was a bigger clock upon which perched[34] an owl, and the owl would say, “tu-whoo!” or “tu-whoo! whoo! whoo!” according to whether it was one o’clock or three. and all the little folks that lived in paradise ward knew it was the loveliest place in the world, for nobody ever told them that the reason they were brought to so beautiful a home was because they would never be well again as long as they lived.

polly dudley had not seen david or heard from him since the night of patricia’s birthday fête. that was eight days ago. it might as well have been eight months or eight years—so polly felt. she was weary with the ache of it. she wondered for the thousandth time if she had done right to leave him so abruptly. perhaps she had been too harsh. she could not decide, and as the days numbered more and more, her sorrow and restlessness increased. her father and mother were in hearty accord with the stand she had taken, yet even their sanction did not bring her peace.

so often before these dreary days had she dreamed of wide estrangement between her and david, and had been thankful even to tears when she had come to herself to find she had been only dreaming. but from this there was no awakening.

yet there were hours when it seemed as if the trouble must be unreal. she and david drifting farther and farther apart never to meet again in the old way! no, that could not be true!

to-night she sat alone in the living-room, apparently[35] reading; but david kept obtruding himself into the story, so that it did not run smoothly. every little while the reader would sigh, and yet the tale was supposed to be humorous. finally she became aware of voices in the room adjoining, a little room where dr. dudley went whenever he could spare a few minutes’ time, to rest or to think over cases that troubled him. at first she did not recognize the woman’s voice; then she knew that it belonged to miss french, one of the nurses.

“i don’t know what we’re going to do,” the nurse was saying. “i hoped she could stay to-night; but her mother is so much worse that she was just about crazy. she said she must go, and you can’t blame her.”

“we’ll have to get somebody outside,” said dr. dudley.

“we can’t!” asserted miss french. “there’s a shortage of nurses everywhere, so many are off on vacations. i’ve telephoned and telephoned—i didn’t want to bother you if i could help it—and dr. macy told me to engage the best i could find; but there isn’t a soul to be had.”

“if mrs. dudley were at home she would go in for to-night; but we’ll get along somehow. they are all pretty well in there, that’s a good thing.”

“yes, paradise ward is the easiest to handle,” assented the nurse.

polly had been listening, listening closely, while red spots fluttered in and out of her cheeks.

[36] “i will take care of paradise ward,” she said quietly.

dr. dudley and miss french looked up to see polly standing in the doorway.

“that is,” she added, “if father thinks i am competent.” she had appeared to be addressing the nurse; now her eyes met the physician’s.

“you are perfectly capable, as far as that goes; there is no acute illness there. but you might not wake if you were needed.”

“of course i should!” she declared. “i wake very easily.”

“you can try it. i dare say to-morrow we can find somebody.”

“i’ll be ready right away,” she told miss french, and ran upstairs.

polly opened softly the door of paradise ward. the dozen small occupants were in bed, and a dim night-lamp was burning. the nurse who had made ready for the night had flitted away to those that were waiting for her. polly did not think her entrance had awakened anybody; but a small head was raised from its pillow, and a voice called out in a low, delighted tone, “’llo, mi’ duddy!”

the girl hastened across the room, to pat the mop of yellow hair and to hush any tendency to talk. she was acquainted with little marmaduke bill, and she knew the importance of cutting off his flow of prattle before it became an uncontrollable stream.

[37] “so long you didn’ come, mi’ duddy, my thought my should die.”

polly smiled down on him, and said softly, “now you will go to sleep, for i shall be right here all night.”

a little hand was reached out, to stroke polly’s. “my’s glad, my’s very glad, mi’ duddy.” and he shut his eyes in content.

polly was a frequent visitor in paradise ward, and “little duke” was as beloved by her as by dr. dudley himself.

few of the small patients needed much attention that night from their new nurse; still, polly really slept but little. the novelty of her position as well as plans for the near future pushed sleep into the background and kept it there.

the next day nurses were as scarce as on the night previous, and polly, signifying her willingness to remain in paradise ward, was gladly allowed to stay. but when a trained assistant was to be had, and polly begged not to be turned out, dr. dudley remonstrated against the confinement, maintaining that by september polly would be in no condition to return to college. the girl, however, insisted that the light work was just what she needed to keep her mind busy with outside thoughts, and finally she had things her own way. her father and mother could see plainly enough that she was lighter-hearted than she had been since her separation from david, and her patients[38] all agreed with little duke, who told polly very solemnly “mi’ duddy, if you go away, my shall feel rot-ting!”

so polly did not go. instead, she began at once to carry out some of the many ideas that had come to her since her installment in paradise ward. polly was as observing now as she had been in her childhood, and a day had not gone by before she was planning little new things for the supposedly perfect ward. she was aware that she had only to hint of these to mrs. gresham to have them there at once; but she did not wish to apply to the founder of the hospital. so when she could get somebody to take her place for an hour or two she would go off on shopping trips and come home with all sorts of accessories for the ward. first she brought a new hair-ribbon for clementina cunio, a bright pink ribbon to replace the one of dingy brown. and the child’s delight repaid polly in full for the small expenditure of pocket-money. but that small purchase set in motion a chain of wishes which polly feared for a time was to be a chain after the style of the usual ten-cent concatenations. when william moleski saw the pink bow sitting so jauntily on clementina’s head, he was instantly seized with a desire for a tie of like color for his neck. then timmy dennis began to long for a similar adornment to tie around the collar of his little striped nightgown. the color had taken the ward by storm, for one after another expressed[39] a wish, more or less boldly, for some ornament of the same hue. the young nurse was mildly surprised when annette lacouchière asked for a pink dress; but her astonishment reached its height at the observation of little duke.

“mi’ duddy, my’s good boy. my won’t cry ever when my is inside o’ pink all over!”

polly brought home other and apparently more useful articles than pink ribbons. one day it was some pretty boxes of tiny sheets of note-paper, with so many little envelopes, in the same delicate tint, that one might spoil two or three and still have enough left.

at another time her purchases were two little washtubs, each big enough to hold a dolly’s frock, and—most charming of all—two little electric flatirons to make the dainty wardrobes smooth and beautiful. these had been suggested by zulette mardee’s sighing statement to her next-chair neighbor, that her beloved theodora hadn’t “a single clean dress to her name,” and that nothing would make her so happy as to put them into the washtub. grissel, the neighbor, had agreed with her perfectly, whereupon the succeeding day both little girls were in soapsuds up to their elbows, their small tables wet from end to end and spilling over, and their faces joyous as a june morning.

“you are making yourself a lot of work,” commented a young nurse to polly.

[40] “a lot of pleasure, you mean, don’t you?” returned the doctor’s daughter.

miss bartlett shrugged her small shoulders.

“i’ll give you a week to find out,” she laughed.