The other hour was at twilight, when, work over for the day, the night
nurse, with her rubber-soled shoes and tired eyes and jangling keys, having
reported and received the night orders, the nurses gathered in their small
parlor for prayers. It was months before Sidney got over the exaltation of
that twilight hour, and never did it cease to bring her healing and peace.
In a way, it crystallized for her what the day's work meant: charity and
its sister, service, the promise of rest and peace. Into the little parlor
filed the nurses, and knelt, folding their tired hands.

"The Lord is my shepherd," read the Head out of her worn Bible; "I shall
not want."

And the nurses: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me
beside the still waters."

And so on through the psalm to the assurance at the end, "And I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever." Now and then there was a death behind
one of the white screens. It caused little change in the routine of the
ward. A nurse stayed behind the screen, and her work was done by the
others. When everything was over, the time was recorded exactly on the
record, and the body was taken away.

At first it seemed to Sidney that she could not stand this nearness to
death. She thought the nurses hard because they took it quietly. Then she
found that it was only stoicism, resignation, that they had learned. These
things must be, and the work must go on. Their philosophy made them no
less tender. Some such patient detachment must be that of the angels who
keep the Great Record.