There are a few rare natures who make collections for the sheer love of the objects they collect, and if they can be persuaded to show them off at all it is always with so much tenderness and sympathy that even the feelings of a delicately wrought Buddha could not be bruised.  But there were none of these natures numbered among the trustees of Saint Margaret’s.  And because it was purely a matter of charity and pride with them, and because they never had any time left over from being thorough and business-like to spend on the children themselves, they never failed to leave a shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day.  The contagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of self-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward and went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until it reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation.  There was a reason for this—­as Margaret MacLean put it once in paraphrase: 

“Children come and children go, but we stay on for ever.”

Trustee Day was an abiding memory only with the incurables; which meant that twelve times a year—­at the end of every month—­Ward C cried itself to sleep.

Spring could not have begun the day better.  She is never the spendthrift that summer is, but once in a while she plunges recklessly into her treasure-store and scatters it broadcast.  On this last day of April she was prodigal with her sunshine; out countryward she garnished every field and wood and hollow with her best.  Everywhere were flowers and pungent herby things in such abundance that even the city folk could sense them afar off.

Little cajoling breezes scuttled around corners and down thoroughfares, blowing good humor in and bad humor out.  Birds of passage—­song-sparrows, tanagers, bluebirds, and orioles—­even a pair of cardinals—­stopped wherever they could find a tree or bush from which to pipe a friendly greeting.  Yes, spring certainly could not have begun the day better; it was as if everything had said to itself, “We know this is a very special occasion and we must do our share in making it fine.”

So well did everything succeed that Margaret MacLean was up and out of Saint Margaret’s a full half-hour earlier than usual, her heart singing antiphonally with the birds outside.  Coatless, but capped and in her gray uniform, she jumped the hospital steps, two at a time, and danced the length of the street.

Now Margaret MacLean was small and slender, and there was nothing grotesque in the dancing.  It had become a natural means of expressing the abundant life and joyousness she had felt ever since she had been free of crutches and wheeled chairs; and an impartial stranger, had he been passing, would have watched her with the same uncritical delight that he might have bestowed on any wood creature had it suddenly appeared darting along the pavement.  She reached the corner just in time to bump into the flower-seller, who was turning about like some old tabby to settle himself and his basket.