"Yes, dear. Now shall we go on with the story?"
She had read to where the rat was demanding the passport when she
recognized the President's step outside the door. In another moment he
was standing beside her chair, looking at the book on her knee.
"Humph! faery-tales! Is that not very foolish? Don't you think, Miss
Margaret, it would be more suitable to their condition in life if you
should select--hmm--something like _Pilgrim's Progress_ or _Lives of
the Saints and Martyrs_? Something that would be a preparation--so to
speak--for the future." He stood facing her now, his back to the
children.
"Excuse me"--she was smiling up at him--"but I thought this was a
better preparation."
The President frowned. He was a much-tried man--a man of charitable
parts, who directed or presided over thirty organizations. It took him
nearly thirty days each month--with the help of two private secretaries
and a luxurious office--to properly attend to all the work resulting
therefrom; and the matters in hand were often so trying and perplexing
that he had to go abroad every other year to avoid a nervous breakdown.
"I think we took up this matter at one of the business meetings," he
went on, patiently, "and some arrangement was made for one of the
trustees to come and read the Bible and teach the children their
respective creeds and catechisms."
Margaret MacLean nodded. "There was; Miss N----"--and she named the
Youngest and Prettiest Trustee--"generally comes an hour before the
meeting and reads to them; but to-day she was detained by a--tango tea,
I believe. That's why I chose this." Her eyes danced unconsciously as
she tapped the book.
The President looked at her sharply. "I should think, my dear young
lady, that you, of all persons, would realize what a very serious thing
life is to any one in this condition. Instead of that I fear at times
that you are--shall I say--flippant?" He turned about and looked at
the children. "How do you do?" he asked, kindly.
"Thank you, sir, we are very well, sir," they chorused in reply. Saint
Margaret's was never found wanting in politeness.
The President left; and the nurse in charge of Ward C went on with the
reading.
"'The Tin Soldier stood up to his neck in water; deeper and deeper sank
the boat, and the paper became more and more limp; then the water
closed over him; but the Tin Soldier remained firm and shouldered his
musket.'"
A group filled the doorway; it was the voice of the Oldest Trustee that
floated in. "This, my dear, is the incurable ward; we are very much
interested in it."
They stood just over the threshold--the Oldest Trustee in advance, her
figure commanding and unbent, for all her seventy years, and her
lorgnette raised. As she was speaking a little gray wisp of a woman
detached herself from the group and moved slowly down the row of cots.
"Yes," continued the Oldest Trustee, "we have two cases of congenital
hip disease and three of spinal tuberculosis--that is one of them in
the second crib." Her eyes moved on from Sandy to Rosita. "And the
fifth patient has such a dreadful case of rheumatism. Sad, isn't it,
in so young a child? Yes, the Senior Surgeon says it is absolutely
incurable."
Margaret MacLean closed the book with a bang; for five minutes the
children had been looking straight ahead with big, conscious eyes,
hearing not a word. Rebellion gripped at her heart and she rose
quickly and went over to the group.
"Wouldn't you like to come in and talk to the children? They are
rather sober this afternoon; perhaps you could make them laugh."
"Yes, wouldn't you like to go in?" put in the Oldest Trustee. "They
are very nice children."
But the visitors shrank back an almost infinitesimal distance; and one
said, hesitatingly:
"I'm afraid we wouldn't know quite what to say to them."
"Perhaps you would like to see the new pictures for the nurses' room?"
the nurse in charge suggested, wistfully.
The Oldest Trustee glanced at her with a hint of annoyance. "We have
already seen them. I think you must have forgotten, my dear, that it
was I who gave them."
With flashing cheeks Margaret MacLean fled from Ward C. If she had
stayed long enough to watch the little gray wisp of a woman move
quietly from cot to cot, patting each small hand and asking, tenderly,
"And what is your name, dearie?" she might have carried with her a
happier feeling. At the door of the board-room she ran into the House
Surgeon.
"Is it as bad as all that?" he asked after one good look at her.
"It's worse--a hundred times worse!" She tossed her head angrily. "Do
you know what is going to happen some day? I shall forget who I
am--and who they are and what they have done for me--and say things
they will never forgive. My mind-string will just snap, that's all;
and every little pestering, forbidden thought that has been kicking its
heels against self-control and sense-of-duty all these years will come
tumbling out and slip off the edge of my tongue before I even know it
is there."
"They are some hot little thoughts, I wager," laughed the House Surgeon.
And then, from the far end of the cross-corridor, came the voice of the
Oldest Trustee, talking to the group:
". . . such a very sweet girl--never forgets her place or her duty.
She was brought here from the Foundling Asylum when she was a baby, in
almost a dying condition. Every one thought it was an incurable case;
the doctors still shake their heads over her miraculous recovery. Of
course it took years; and she grew up in the hospital."
With a look of dumb, battling anger the nurse in charge of Ward C
turned from the House Surgeon--her hands clenched--while the voice of
the Oldest Trustee came back to them, still exhibiting:
"No, we have never been able to find out anything about her parentage;
undoubtedly she was abandoned. We named her 'Margaret MacLean,' after
the hospital and the superintendent who was here then. Yes, indeed--a
very, very sad--"
When the Oldest Trustee reached the boardroom it was empty, barring the
primroses, which were guilelessly nodding in the green Devonshire bowl
on the President's desk.