The Primrose Ring | Page 8

before the meeting of the board. In a small,
frightened voice she asked them to please send her away to school. She
wanted to learn enough to come back to Saint Margaret's and be a
nurse.
The trustees consented. Having assumed the responsibility of her
well-being for over fifteen years, they could not very easily shirk it now.
Furthermore, was it not a praise-worthy tribute to Saint Margaret's as a
charitable institution, and to themselves as trustees, that this child
whom they had sheltered and helped to cure should choose this way of
showing her gratitude? Verily, the board pruned and plumed itself well
that day.

All this Margaret MacLean lived over again as she climbed the stairs to
Ward C on the 30th of April, her heart glowing warm with the memory
of this man who had first understood; who had freed her mind from the
abnormality of her body and the stigma of her heritage; who had made
it possible for her to live wholesomely and deeply; and who had set her
feet upon a joyous mission. For the thousandth time she blessed that
memory.
It had been no disloyalty on her part that she had closed her lips and
said nothing when the House Surgeon had questioned her about her
fancy-making. She could never get away from the feeling that some of
the sweetness and sacredness might be lost with the telling of the
memory. One is so apt to cheapen a thing when one tries hastily to put
it into words, and ever afterward it is never quite the same.
On the second floor she stopped; and by chance she looked over,
between spiral banisters, to the patch of hallway below. It just
happened that the House Surgeon was standing there, talking with one
of the internes.
Margaret MacLean smiled whimsically. "If there is a soul in the wide
world I could share it with, it is the House Surgeon." And then she
added, aloud, softly apostrophizing the top of his head, "I think some
day you might grow to be very--very like the Old Senior Surgeon; that
is, if you would only stop trying to be like the present one."
[Illustration: "If there is a soul in the wide world I could share it with, it
is the House Surgeon."]

III
WARD C
A welcoming shout went up from Ward C as Margaret MacLean
entered. It was lusty enough to have come from the throats of healthy
children, and it would have sounded happily to the most impartial ears;
to the nurse in charge it was a very pagan of gladness.
"Wish you good morning, good meals, and good manners," laughed
Margaret MacLean; and then she went from crib to crib with a special
greeting for each one. Oh, she firmly believed that a great deal
depended on how the day began.
In the first crib lay Pancho, of South American parentage, partially
paralyzed and wholly captivating. He had been in Saint Margaret's

since babyhood--he was six now--and had never worn anything but a
little hospital shirt.
"Good morning, Brown Baby," she said, kissing his forehead. "It's just
the day for you out on the sun-porch; and you'll hear birds--lots of
them."
"Wobins?"
"Yes, and bluebirds, too. I've heard them already."
Next came Sandy--merry of heart--a humpback laddie from Aberdeen.
His parents had gone down with the steerage of a great ocean liner, and
society had cared for him until the first horror of the tragedy had passed;
then some one fortunately had mentioned Saint Margaret's, and society
was relieved of its burden. In the year he had spent here his Aberdonian
burr had softened somewhat and a number of American colloquialisms
had crept into his speech; but for all that he was "the braw canny
Scot"--as the House Surgeon always termed him--and he objected to
kisses. So the good-morning greeting was a hearty hand-shake between
the two--comrade fashion.
"It wad be a bonnie day i' Aberdeen," he reminded her, blithely. "But
'tis no the robins there 'at wad be singin'."
"Shall I guess?"
"Na, I'll tell ye. Laverocks!"
"Really, Sandy?" And then she suddenly remembered something. "Now
you guess what you're going to have for supper to-night."
"Porridge?"
"No; scones!"
"Bully!" And Sandy clapped his hands ecstatically.
Beside Sandy lay Susan--smart, shrewd, and American, with braced
legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days.
But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was;
and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like
little face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the
Susan-kind hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and
therefore gives sparingly.
"Guess yer couldn't guess what I dreamt last night, Miss Peggie?"
"About the aunt?" This