The Primrose Ring | Page 3

raised a significant finger. "Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther bringin' anythin' else? But the rest that passes--or stops--will see naught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'." And the flower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.
"Perhaps not. There are the children--"
"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible wise."
"I know--I know--but mine aren't. I'm going to take my children back as many as I can carry." She stretched both hands about a mass of stems--all they could compass. "See"--she held up a giant bunch--"so much happiness is worth a great deal. Feel in the pocket of my apron and you will find--gold for gold. It was the only money I had in my purse. Keep it all, please." With a nod and a smile she left him, dancing her way back along the still deserted street.
"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all," chuckled the flower-seller as he eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called after the diminishing figure of the nurse: "Hey, there! Mind what ye do wi' them blossoms. They be's powerful strong magic." And he chuckled again.
The hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped for an interchange of grins and greetings.
"Mornin', Miss Peggie."
"Morning, Patsy."
He was "Patrick" to the rest of Saint Margaret's; no one else seemed to realize that he was only about one-fifth uniform and the other fifths were boy--small boy at that.
She eyed his work critically. "That's right--polish them well, Patsy. They must shine especially bright to-day."
"Why, what's happenin' to-day?"
"Oh--everything, and--nothing at all."
And she passed on through the door with a most mysterious smile, thereby causing Patsy to mentally comment:
"My, don't she beat all! More'n half the time a feller don't know what she's kiddin' about; but, gee! don't he like it!"
As it happened the primroses did not get as far as Ward C then. Margaret MacLean found the door of the board-room ajar, and, glancing in, looked square into the eyes of the Founder of Saint Margaret's, where he hung in his great gold frame--silent and questioning.
"If all the tales they tell about you are true, you must wonder what has happened to Saint Margaret's since you turned it over to a board of trustees."
She went in and stood close to him, smiling wistfully. "Perhaps you would like me to leave you the primroses until after the meeting--they would be sure to cheer you up; and they might--they might--" Laughing, she went over to the President's desk and put the flowers in the green Devonshire bowl.
She was sitting in the President's chair, coaxing some of the hoydenish blossoms into place, when the House Surgeon looked in a moment later.
"Hello! What are you doing? I thought you detested this room." He spoke in a teasing, big-brother way, while his eyes dwelt pleasurably on the small gray figure in the President's chair. For, be it said without partiality or prejudice, Margaret MacLean was beautiful, with a beauty altogether free from self-appraisement.
"I do--I hate it!" Then she wagged her head and raised a significant finger in perfect imitation of the flower-seller. "I am dabbling in--magic. I am starting here a terrible and insidious campaign against gloom."
The House Surgeon looked amused. "You make me shiver, all right; but I haven't the smallest guess coming. Would you mind putting it into scientific American?"
"I'm afraid I couldn't. But I can make a plain statement in prose--this is Trustee Day."
"Hell!" The House Surgeon walked over to the calendar on the desk to verify the fact. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Margaret MacLean spread her hands over the primroses, indicatively. "I told you--magic." She wrinkled up her forehead into a worrisome frown. "Let me see; I counted them, up last night, and I have had two hundred and twenty-eight Trustee Days in my life. I have tried about everything else--philosophy, Christianity, optimism, mental sclerosis, and missionary fever; but never magic. Don't you think it sounds--hopeful?"
The House Surgeon laughed. "You are the funniest little person I ever knew. On duty you're as old as Methuselah and as wise as Hippocrates, but the rest of the time I believe your feet are eternally treading the nap off antique wishing-carpets. I wonder how many you've worn out. As for that head of yours, it bobs like a penny balloon among the clouds looking for--"
"Faeries?" suggested Margaret MacLean.
"That just about hits it. Will you please tell me how you, of all people, ever evolved these--ideas--out of Saint Margaret's?"
A grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across the room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's--the portrait of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a person is