TITH so many willing hearts and hands at their service, it had been an easy matter to convert the chapel¹ into a hospital; but now that it was converted, where was the money to come from to run it? The surgeon had said he thought it would be fully² two weeks before the captain, and the two men who had been most badly hurt, would be about again, and in the meantime there were medicines to be bought and food to be provided for the entire party. Sister Julia knew well enough that there was no money to spare for the purpose in Moorlow, and they could hope for no remuneration from the poor sailors. With the wreck³ of his vessel⁴ and his cargo⁵ the captain himself had lost everything, and he had told Sister Julia “he had not even a penny left to go toward paying off his crew.”
 
So it happened one afternoon, a day or two after the wreck, that Sister Julia, wrapping a shawl about her, left her patients in charge of her assistants, and went out on the beach to get a breath of fresh air, and try and think her way out of this money difficulty.
 
She had not gone far before she heard voices behind her, and turned to see Mr. Vale, with Regie and Harry⁶ and Nan, hurrying after her. They had hold of hands, and, stretched in one long line, looked like quite a formidable little party, as they came toward her.
 
“We have come to take you prisoner for neglect of duty,” said Mr. Vale, as the line formed into a circle and shut her in.
 
“Not exactly neglect of duty,” laughed Sister Julia; “my thoughts are all with the hospital. I have been racking my poor brain to know where the money is to come from to support our patients up yonder.”
 
“Yes, I knew that must be troubling you,” Mr. Vale answered; “and I came down purposely to talk matters over with you. This log looks long enough to hold five people comfortably. Suppose we sit down here a few moments.”
 
So they ranged themselves on the piece of timber, which had been stranded⁷ from the wreck of the Starling, and which two days of sunshine had thoroughly⁸ dried.
 
“Now,” said Mr. Vale, “let us proceed to business. Suppose we have these men on our hands for two weeks, how much do you think it is going to cost us?”
 
“That is what I have been trying to get at,” replied Sister Julia; “all the bedding and things must be paid for, and there is the coal, which we are burning at a lively rate the whole twenty-four hours. These women who help me can't afford to work without wages, though they would be willing enough to, and Bromley the sexton must have something, for he's up a dozen times a night tending to the fires in the two stoves. It seems to me ten dollars a day might be made to cover our running expenses, but I do not see how we can manage to do with less.”
 
“That will be seventy dollars a week,” said Harry, having worked out the difficult sum on the firm wet sand at his feet; “whew! but that's a lot, and for two weeks it would be twice that.”
 
“Yes, a hundred and forty dollars,” said Sister Julia; “it is a pretty large sum.”
 
“And your own services ought not to go unremunerated,” Mr. Vale suggested.
 
“Indeed they ought! I only wish my pocket were long enough to pay all the bills myself.”
 
“I've wished mine was, a hundred times over, since the wreck.”
 
“There's one thing I want to ask you, Mr. Vale,” said Sister Julia, “and that is, if, after all, you think even my time is my own to give. You see while Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are abroad I am employed by them to care for Reginald. To be sure he is so nearly well now that he does not need me, and Mrs. Murray is like a mother to him, but his lessons will have to be interrupted, and I wondered if Mr. Fairfax would feel I was doing quite right to neglect them.”
 
“And who would care for the poor men then?” cried Nan, with real distress⁹. “Nobody knows just how to do for 'em but you, Sister Julia.”
 
“You need have no fears on the score of Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax,” said Mr. Vale, decidedly; “I know them well enough to assure you that they will thoroughly approve of and admire your course, and Nan is quite right. You know that no one here could care for them properly but just yourself.”
 
“But how about the money?” urged Regie, who was anxious to know what they were going to do about it.
 
“Well, I have thought of two or three schemes,” Mr. Vale replied. “You know we could write to Washington, and doubtless get an appropriation¹⁰ from some fund or other, but I would take a sort of pride in not bothering the Government at all about it; at any rate, not until we ............