with spines of make-believe sticking out all
over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the
things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp--just
skin and feelings."

"And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?"

"Oh dear, no! But I keep believing it's going to be much better. Did
you ever think what it could be like--if the trustees would only make
it something more than--a matter of business? Why, it could be as good
as any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one;
and think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried.
Think--think--and, oh, the fun of it!"

She broke off with a little shivering ache. When the picture became so
alive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop. But
the next moment she was laughing merrily.

"Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with
the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to
myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It
began to sound so real that one day I answered--just as if some one had
said something pleasant."

"Well?" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.

"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those
lorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was
spoken to. I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them
into god-parents."

"Look here," and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a
firm, big-brother grip of her hands, "faery-tales have to have
stepmothers as well as godmothers--think of it that way. And remember
that those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches."

"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them. I want them to
be children--plain, happy, laughing children--with as normal a heritage
as we can scrape together for them. All it needs is the magic of a
little human understanding. That's the most potent magic in the whole
world. Why, it can do anything!"

A little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face. It always did
when she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something
very intensely. It was the hardest kind of a look to resist. She had
often threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it
was her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor
and meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one
could