The Primrose Ring | Page 8

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 was a mythical relation of Susan's who lived somewhere and who was supposed to turn up some day and claim Susan with open arms. She was the source of many dreams and of much interested conversation and heated argument in the ward, and the children had her pictured down to the smallest detail of person and clothes.
"No, 'tain't my aunt this time. I dreamt you was gettin' married, Miss Peggie." And Susan giggled delightedly.
"An' goin' away?" This was groaned out in chorus from the two cots following Susan's, wherein lay James and John--fellow-Apostles of pain--bound closely together in that spiritual brotherhood. They were sitting up, holding hands and staring at Margaret with wide, anguish-filled eyes.
"Of course I'm not going away, little brothers; and I'm not going to get married. Does any one ever get married in Saint Margaret's?"
The Apostles thought very hard about it for a moment; but as it had never happened