Mental! The explanation was not entirely comforting. I had a vision of Millie approaching near my bed and strangling me with horrid cries. But the explanation still continued.

“She’s often like that, you know. Mental people always are.”

“Mental, I don’t think,” said someone. “It’s a nice way of putting it. The poor thing lost her husband and five sons in the war.”

“Oh, yes,” said the first speaker, “but she gets a lot of money for it. Millie has a fine pension.”

It was an unaccustomed point of view, but its utter lack of sentiment attracted me, and I was still puzzling over the respective attractions of a fine pension and a family when the girl in the bed next to mine sat up. By this time I had slipped off my things and was in between the sheets. The bed was quite comfortable and the clothing clean and warm. It wasn’t a pauper bed by any means.