“And the next one brought happiness—­didn’t she?” asked little Margaret MacLean.

He nodded.  “Of course.  Then came a little gray-haired faery with a nosegay of Thoughts-for-other-folks, all dried and ready to put away like sweet lavender.”

“And did the next bring love?”

Again he agreed.  “But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady in a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense.”

“And then—­then—­ Oh, couldn’t the one after her bring beauty?  Some one always did in the book stories.  I think I wouldn’t mind the back and—­other things so much if my face could be nice.”

Margaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little Margaret MacLean had been.

The Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile.  “Have you never looked into a glass, Thumbkin?”

She shook her head.

Children in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they look, and perhaps it is better that way.  Only if it happens—­as it does sometimes—­that they spend a good share of their life there, it seems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with themselves.

For a moment he patted her hand; after which he said, very solemnly:  “Wait for a year and a day—­then look.  You will find out then just what the next faery brought.”

Margaret MacLean had obeyed this command to the letter.  When the year and a day came she had been able to stand on tiptoe and look at herself for the first time in her life; and she would never forget the gladness of that moment.  It had appeared nothing short of a miracle to her that she should actually possess something of which she need not be ashamed—­something nice to share with the world.  And whenever Margaret MacLean thought of her looks at all, which was rare, she thought of them in that way.

She took up the memory again where she had dropped it on the second flight of stairs, slowly climbing her way to Ward C, and went on with the story.

They came to the place where Thumbkin was pricked by the wicked faery with the sleeping-thorn and put to sleep for a hundred years, after the fashion of many another story princess; and the Old Senior Surgeon suddenly stopped and looked at her sharply.

“Some day, Thumbkin, I may play the wicked faery and put you to sleep.  What would you say to that?”

She did not say—­then.

More months passed, months which brought an ashen, drawn look to the face of the Old Senior Surgeon, and a tired-out droop to his shoulders and eyes.  She began to notice that the nurses eyed him pityingly whenever he came into the ward, and the house surgeon shook his head ominously.  She wondered what it meant; she wondered more when he came at last to remind her of his threatened promise.

“You remember, Thumbkin, about that sleep?  Would you let an old faery doctor put you to sleep, for a little while, if he was very sure you would wake up to find happiness—­and health—­and love—­and all the other gifts the godmothers brought?”