ad an awfully
trying day--most women would be in their rooms having hysteria or
doldrums."

Still she did not hear. Her eyes were traveling from cot to crib and
on to cot again, as they had once before that night. "Every single bed
looks empty," she repeated. "The clothes tumbled as if the children
had slipped quietly out from under them." She shivered ever so
slightly. "Perhaps they have found out they are not wanted any longer
and have run away."

"Come, come," the House Surgeon spoke in a gruff whisper. "I believe
you're getting feverish." And mechanically his ringers closed over her
pulse. Then he pulled her to her feet. "Go over to those beds this
minute and see for yourself that every child is there, safe and sound
asleep."

But she held back, laughing nervously. "No, no; we mustn't spoil the
magic of the ring." Her voice trailed off into a dreamy, wistful
monotone. "Who knows--Cinderella's godmother came to her when it was
only a matter of ragged clothes and a party; the need here was far
greater. Who knows?" She caught her breath with a sudden in-drawn
cry. "Why, to-night is May Eve!"

"Why, of course it is!" agreed the House Surgeon, as if he had known it
from the beginning.

"And who knows but the faeries may have come and stolen them all away?"

Now the House Surgeon was old in understanding, although he was young
in years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of
a tired, overwrought brain. He knew without being told--for Margaret
MacLean would never have told--how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and
mind-sick she was to-night. What he did not know, however, was how
pitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this
was the hour for the full conscious reckoning of it.

She had often said, whimsically, "Those who are born with wooden
instead of golden spoons in their mouths had better learn very young to
keep them well scoured, or they'll find them getting so rough and
splintered that they can't possibly eat with them." She had followed
her own advice bravely, and kept happy; but now even the wooden spoon
had been taken from her.

The House Surgeon lifted her up and put her gently into the rocker,
while he sat down on the corner of the table, neighbor to the green
Devonshire bowl.

Perhaps Margaret MacLean was not to find bitterness, after all; perhaps
it would be his glad good fortune to keep it from her. It was
surprising the way he felt