. But when is it going to happen?"

The House Surgeon brought up her mail; it was an excuse to see her
again before his official visit. "Are the children very much broken up
over it?" he asked, anxiously, outside the door.

For answer Margaret MacLean beckoned him and pointed to the eight
occupied cots--unquestionably serene and happy.

"Well, I'll be--" began the House Surgeon, retiring precipitously back
to the door again; but the nurse put a silencing finger over his lips.

"Hush, dear! The children are probably clearer visioned than we are.
I have the distinct feeling this morning of being very blind and
stupid, while they seem--oh, so wise."

The House Surgeon grunted expressively. "Well, perhaps they won't take
your going away so dreadfully to heart--now; or theirs, for that
matter."

"I hope not," and then she smiled wistfully. "But I thought you told
me last night we were all going together? At any rate, I am not going
to tell them anything. If it must be it must be, and I shall slip off
quietly, when the children are napping, and leave the trustees to tell."

She looked her mail over casually; there were the usual number of
advertisements, a letter from one of the nurses who had gone South, and
another in an unfamiliar hand-writing. She tore off the corner of the
last, and, running her finger down the flap, she commented:

"Looks like quality. A letter outside the profession is a very rare
thing for me."

She read the letter through without a sound, and then she read it
again, the House Surgeon watching, the old big-brother look gone for
ever from his face, and in its place a worshipful proprietorship. The
effect of the letter was undeniably Aprilish; she looked up at the
House Surgeon with the most radiant of smiles, while her eyes spilled
recklessly over.

"How did you know it? How did you know it?" she repeated.

He was trying his best to find out what it was all about when one of
the nurses came hurrying down the corridor.

"You are both wanted down in the board-room. They have called a
special meeting of the trustees for nine o'clock; everybody's here and
acting decidedly peculiar, I think. Why, as I passed the door I am
sure I saw the President slapping the Senior Surgeon on the back. I
never heard of anything like this happening before."

"Come," said Margaret MacLean to the House Surgeon. "If we walk down
very slowly we will have time enough to read the letter on the way."