Nurse in White by Lucy Agnes Hancock

hoped you had outgrown your altruism by this time.”
    “Oh, well,” Ellen laughed, refusing to get into an argument at four in the morning. “Let’s talk about our Christmas tree. While you’re out tomorrow buying those oranges, you might get some of the things for the tree. There’ll be sixteen we know of and probably one or two more—there always are. Better count on twenty. I don’t know of any in L who expect to go home for Christmas.”
    “Count out Slavonski and Muller,” Ann said grimly. “They get nothing.”
    “Oh, Ann!” Ellen protested mildly.
    “And where do you get twenty? We’ve only sixteen beds filled and if Crispi goes home as she insists she will, there’ll be only fifteen.”
    “Crispi won’t go home, and it’s quite likely all twenty beds will be filled by Christmas, Ann. People seem to fall around pore at this time of the year. So really I think we should get a few extra things—one never knows and it would be too bad to miss anyone. We can always take them up front if we have anything over.”
    “Okay. Here’s what I suggest—see what you think of it.” Together they went over the lists—changing an item here and there and adding others.
    “I’m flat, Ellen,” Ann grumbled. “You’ll have to finance the thing. I’ll pay you, positively, on the twenty-fourth. Dad always sends me a check.”
    “Ten dollars ought to cover everything,” Ellen figured. “I have a lot of wrappings and seals and things left from my own packages and I snitched three strings of lights from the pile downstairs. Just because this is Ward L, conducted in the name of sweet but cold charity, it doesn’t mean that our tree has to be as skimpy and unattractive as most charity is.”
    Ann laughed. “And I snitched three strings, Ellen, and two boxes of ornaments. Hurrah for our side! Forsyth’s a regular Scrooge when it comes to loosening up on decorations. How does she expect us to trim a tree with nothing to use?”
    “Do you suppose we can get first pick of the trees when they come, Ann?” Ellen asked. “With six strings of lights, we ought to have a sizeable one. I’ll go down and select a couple more boxes of doodads—just nonchalantly, you know—not snitch them this time unless someone questions my right to them. How about getting Dent to pick out a tree for us? He—well, he seems more or less interested in—in—one of our patients here.”
    Ann hesitated for only a moment. Dent had proven himself a total loss. According to reports, he was out for a girl with social position and money. Only yesterday she had heard of his rushing Sylvia Durston—or she him—one of the country-club smart young things. Well, let him rush her; from the picture Ann had seen of her in the Sunday paper, she wasn’t so much. And what was money? Convenient and necessary to be sure—in a man, but in a girl, youth and beauty, plus that ‘certain something,’ counted far more. Dent wasn’t anything to lose sleep over, anyway. She intended doing much better than a struggling young doctor. The only thing about Dent that had intrigued her was the fact that she couldn’t quite make him. That was an unusual thing for her—she always got her man. She had heard he had been attracted to Ellen—had even been attentive to her in a careful, hole-in-a-wall way—trust him to save his cake and eat it, too—the heel! Well, she was sure Ellen wouldn’t fall for him—he was too sure of himself, too nonchalant and smooth, and Ellen was set on following through to a medical career—the poor, willfully blind imbecile!
    “Okay! We’ll get the pick of the lot or my fatal charm is losing its potency,” she promised flippantly. “Did you know Forsyth has the sentimental idea we should sing carols on Christmas Eve? Imagine! I can’t carry a tune across the street—no ear for music at all. I suggested you do the singing, Ellen,, but Agatha frowned on it. The old pill! Just because I thought of it first. And yet you’re