“Good morning, Brown Baby,” she said, kissing his forehead.  “It’s just the day for you out on the sun-porch; and you’ll hear birds—­lots of them.”

“Wobins?”

“Yes, and bluebirds, too.  I’ve heard them already.”

Next came Sandy—­merry of heart—­a humpback laddie from Aberdeen.  His parents had gone down with the steerage of a great ocean liner, and society had cared for him until the first horror of the tragedy had passed; then some one fortunately had mentioned Saint Margaret’s, and society was relieved of its burden.  In the year he had spent here his Aberdonian burr had softened somewhat and a number of American colloquialisms had crept into his speech; but for all that he was “the braw canny Scot”—­as the House Surgeon always termed him—­and he objected to kisses.  So the good-morning greeting was a hearty hand-shake between the two—­comrade fashion.

“It wad be a bonnie day i’ Aberdeen,” he reminded her, blithely.  “But ’tis no the robins there ’at wad be singin’.”

“Shall I guess?”

“Na, I’ll tell ye.  Laverocks!”

“Really, Sandy?” And then she suddenly remembered something.  “Now you guess what you’re going to have for supper to-night.”

“Porridge?”

“No; scones!”

“Bully!” And Sandy clapped his hands ecstatically.

Beside Sandy lay Susan—­smart, shrewd, and American, with braced legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days.  But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little face.  Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind hunger for affection, but the world rarely finds it out and therefore 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.