Ward C was properly impressed.  Eight little figures sat up as straight as they could; eight pairs of eager eyes followed Bridget’s pointing finger and gazed in speechless wonder at the green Devonshire bowl.

“Do ye think, Sandy, that ye could scrooch out o’ bed an’ hump yerself over to them?  If Pether tries he’s sure to tumble over, an’ some one might hear.”

Sandy looked at the flowers without enthusiasm.  “Phat are ye wantin’ wi’ ’em?”

“I’ll tell ye when ye get there.  Just thry; ye’ll be yondther afore ye know it.”

Cautiously Sandy rolled over on his stomach and pushed two shrunken little legs out from the covers.  Putting them gingerly to the floor, he stood up, holding fast to the bed; then working his way from bed to bed, he reached the table at last, spurred on by Bridget’s irresistible blarney: 

“Sure ye’re walkin’ grand, Sandy.  I never saw any one puttin’ one leg past another smarther than what ye are.  Ye’d fetch up to Aberdeen i’ no time if ye kept on at the pace ye are goin’.”

Pride lies above pain; and Sandy held his head very high as he steadied himself by the table and looked toward Bridget for further orders.

[Illustration:  Sandy held his head very high as he steadied himself by the table and looked toward Bridget for further orders.]

“Phat wull a do the noo?” he asked.

In the excitement Bridget had pulled herself to the foot of the cot; and there, eyes shining and cheeks growing pinker and pinker, she held her breath while the pleasantest thought of all shaped itself somewhere under the shock of red curls.

“Ye could never guess in a hundthred years what I was thinkin’ this minute,” she burst forth, ecstatically.

Eight mouths opened wide in anticipated wonder; but no one thought of guessing.

“I’m thinkin’—­I’m thinkin’ we could make a primrose ring the night.  Is there any knowledgeable one among ye that knows aught of a primrose ring?”

Eight heads shook an emphatic negative.

“Aye, wasn’t I sayin’ so!  Well, sure, a primrose ring is a faery ring; an’ any one that makes it an’ steps inside, wishin’ a wish, is like to have anythin’ at all happen them afore they steps out of it ag’in.”

Eight breaths were drawn in and sighed out with the shivering delight that always accompanies that feeling which lies between fear and desire; likewise, eight delicious thrills zigzagged up eight cold little spines.  Then Bridget shook a commanding finger at Sandy.

“Ye take them flowers out o’ the pot an’ dthrop them, one by one, till ye have the ground covered from the head of Pancho’s bed to the tail o’ Michael’s.  ‘Twon’t make the whole of a ring, but if ye crook it out i’ the middle to the wall yondther, ’twill be like enough.”

With a doubtful eye Sandy spanned the distance.  “Na—­na.  Gien a hustled a wud be a dee’d loonie afore a had ’em spilled.”