erefore
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 before, of course it never would now, and Miss Peggie
was safe.

The whole ward smiled again. But in that moment Margaret MacLean
remembered what the House Surgeon had said, and wondered. Was she
building up for them an ultimate discontent in trying to make life
happy and full for them now? Could not minds like theirs be taught to
walk alone, after all? And then she laughed to herself for worrying.
Why should the children ever have to do without her--unless--unless
something came to them far better--like Susan's mythical aunt? The
children need never leave Saint Margaret's as long as they lived, and
she never should; and she passed on to the next cot, content that all
was well.

As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms flew out and
clasped themselves tightly about her neck; a head with a shock of red
curls buried itself in the folds of the gray uniform. This was
Bridget--daughter of the Irish sod, oldest of the ward, general
caretaker and best beloved; although it should be added in justice to
both Bridget and Margaret MacLean that the former had no consciousness
of it, and the latter took great care to hide it.

[Illustration: As she stooped over the bed a pair of thin little arms
flew out and clasped themselves tightly about her neck.]

It was Bridget who read to the others when no one else could; it was
Bridget who remembered some wonderful story to