"I hope it will mean a load off our purses. That ward and that nurse have always wanted things, and had them, that they had no business wanting. I hope we can save a substantial sum now for the endowment fund."

The Oldest Trustee smiled tolerantly. "Of course it isn't as if the cases were not hopeless. I can see no object, however, in making concessions and sacrifices to keep in the hospital cases that cannot be cured; and, no doubt, we can place them most satisfactorily in state inst.i.tutions for orphans or deficients."

At that moment the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee spied the primroses on the President's desk--she had been too engrossed in the surgical profession to observe much apart. "I believe I'm going to decorate you." And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly.

Selecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the b.u.t.tonhole in his lapel. "See, I'm decorating you with the Order of the Golden Primrose--for brilliancy." Whereupon she dropped her eyes becomingly.

"Good Lord!" muttered the Disagreeable Trustee to the President, his eye focused on the two. "She'll fetch him this time. And she'll have him so hypnotized with all this chirping and dancing business that he'll be perfectly helpless in a month, or I miss--"

The Youngest and Prettiest Trustee looked up just in time to intercept that eye, and she attacked it with a saucy little stare. "I believe you are both jealous," she flung over her shoulder. But the very next moment she was dimpling again. "I believe I am going to decorate everybody--including myself. I'm sure we all deserve it for our loyal support of Science." She, likewise, always spelled it with a capital, having acquired the habit from the Senior Surgeon.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed a cl.u.s.ter of primroses from the green Devonshire bowl; and one was fastened securely in the lapel or frill of every trustee, not even omitting the gray wisp of a woman by the door.

And so it came to pa.s.s that every member of the board of Saint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children went home on May Eve with one of the faeries' own flowers tucked somewhere about his or her person.

Moreover, they went home at precisely three minutes and twenty-two seconds past seven by the clock on the tower--the astronomical time for the sun to go down on the 30th of April. Crack went all the combination locks on all the faery raths, spilling the Little People over all the world; and creak went the gates of Tir-na-n'Og, swinging wide open for wandering mortals to come back.

As the trustees left the hospital the Senior Surgeon turned into the cross-corridor for his case, still gay with his Order of the Golden Primrose; and there, at the foot of the stairs, he ran into Margaret MacLean. They faced each other for the merest fraction of a breath, both conscious and embarra.s.sed; then she glimpsed the flower in his coat and a cry of surprise escaped her.

He smiled, almost foolishly. "I thought they--it--looked rather pretty and--spring-like," he began, by way of explanation. His teeth ground together angrily; he sounded absurd, and he knew it. Furthermore, it was inexcusable of her to corner him in this fashion.

Now Margaret MacLean knew well enough that he would never have discovered the prettiness of anything by himself--not in a century of springtimes, and she sensed the truth.

"Did she decorate you?" she inquired, with an irritating little curl of her lips. The Senior Surgeon's self-confessed blush lent speed to her tongue. "I think I might be privileged to ask what it was for. You see, I presented the flowers to the board meeting. Was it for self-sacrifice?" Her eyes challenged his.

"You are capable of talking more nonsense and being more impertinent than any nurse I have ever known. May I pa.s.s?" His eyes returned her challenge, blazing.

But she never moved; the mind-string once broken, there seemed to be no limit to the thoughts that could come tumbling off the end of her tongue. Her eyes went back to the flower in his coat.

"Perhaps you would like to know that I bought those this morning because they seemed the very breath of spring itself--a bit of promise and gladness. I thought they would keep the day going right."

"Well, they have--for me." And the Senior Surgeon could not resist a look of triumph.

"The trustees"--she drew in a quick breath and put out a steadying hand on the banisters--"you mean--they have given up the incurable ward?"

He nodded. His voice took on a more genial tone. He felt he could generously afford to be pleasant and patient toward the one who had not succeeded. "It was something that was bound to happen sooner or later.

Can't you see that yourself? But I am sorry, very sorry for you."

Suddenly, and for the first time in their long sojourn together in Saint Margaret's, he became wholly conscious of the girl before him.

He realized that Margaret MacLean had grown into a vital and vitalizing personality--a force with which those who came in contact would have to reckon. She stood before him now, frozen into a gray, accusing figure.

"Are you ill?" he found himself asking.

"No."

He shifted his weight uneasily to the other foot. "Is there anything you want?"

Her face softened into the little-girl look. Her eyes brimmed with a sadness past remedy. "What a funny question from you--you, who have taken from me the only thing I ever let myself want--the love and dependence of those children. Success, and having whatever you want, are such common things with you, that you must count them very cheap; but you can't judge what they mean to others--or what they may cost them."

"As I said before, I am sorry, very sorry you have lost your position here; but you have no one but yourself to blame for that. I should have been very glad to have you remain in the new surgical ward; you are one of the best operative nurses I ever had." He added this in all justice to her; and to mitigate, if he could, his own feeling of discomfort.

Margaret MacLean smiled grimly. "Thank you. I was not referring to the loss of my position, however; that matters very little."

"It should matter." The voice of the Senior Surgeon became instantly professional. "Every nurse should put her work, satisfactorily and scientifically executed, before everything else. That is where you are radically weak. Let me remind you that it is your sole business to look after the physical betterment of your patients--nothing else; and the sooner you give up all this sentimental, fanciful nonsense the sooner you will succeed."

"You are wrong. I should never succeed that way--never. Some cases may need only the bodily care--maybe; but you are a very poor doctor, after all, if you think that is all that children need--or half the grown-ups. There are more people ailing with mind-sickness and heart-sickness, as well as body-sickness, than the world would guess, and you've just got to nurse the whole of them. You will succeed, whether you ever find this out or not; but you will miss a great deal out of your life."

Anger was rekindling in the eyes of the Senior Surgeon; and Margaret MacLean, seeing, grew gentle--all in a minute.

"Oh, I wish I could make you understand. You have always been so strong and well and sufficient unto yourself, it's hard, I suppose, to be able to think or see life through the iron slats of a hospital crib.

Just make believe you had been a little crippled boy, with nothing belonging to you, nothing back of you to remember, nothing happy coming to you but what the nurses or the doctors or the trustees thought to bring. And then make believe you were cured and grew up. Wouldn't you remember what life had been in that hospital crib, and wouldn't you fight to make it happier for the children coming after you? Why, the incurable ward was my whole life--home, family, friends, work; everything wrapped up in nine little crippled bodies. It was all I asked or expected of life. Oh, I can tell you that a foundling, with questionable ancestry, with no birth-record or blood-inheritance to boast of, claims very little of the every-day happiness that comes to other people. And yet I was so glad to be alive--and strong and needed by those children that I could have been content all my life with just that."

The Senior Surgeon cleared his throat, preparatory to making some comment, but the nurse raised a silencing finger.

"Wait! there is one thing more. What you have taken from me is the smallest part. The children pay double--treble as much. I pay only with my heart and faith; they pay with their whole lives. Remember that when you install your new surgical ward--and don't reckon it too cheap."

She left him still clearing his throat; and when she came out of the board-room a few seconds later with the green Devonshire bowl in her arms he had disappeared.

Margaret MacLean found Ward C as she had left it. As she was putting down the primroses, on the table in the center of the room she caught Bridget's white face beckoning to her eagerly. Softly she went over to her cot.

"What is it, dear?"

"Miss Peggie darlin', if ye'd only give me leave to talk quiet I'd have the childher cheered up in no time."

"Would you promise not to make any noise?"

"Promise on m' heart! I'll have 'em all asleep quicker 'n nothin'. Ye see, just."

"Very well. I'll be back after supper to see if the promise has been kept." She stooped, brushed away the curls, and kissed the little white forehead. "Oh, Bridget! Bridget! no matter what happens, always remember to keep happy!"

"Sure an' I will," agreed Bridget; and she watched the nurse go out, much puzzled.

VI

THE PRIMROSE RING

Bridget, oldest of the ward, general caretaker and best beloved, hunched herself up on her pillows until she was sitting reasonably straight, and clapped her hands. "Whist!" she called, softly. "Whist there, all o' ye! What's ailin'?"

Eight woebegone pairs of eyes turned in her direction.

"Ye needn't be afeared o' speakin'. Miss Peggie give us leave to talk quiet."

"It's them trusters," wailed Peter. "They come a-peekin' round to see we don't get well."

"They alters calls us 'uncurables,'" moaned Susan.

"Pig of water-drinking Americans!" came from the last cot.