“Ye are afther meanin’ that he didn’t come back—­that’s what!” And then she added, as an afterthought, “He said to tell ye ‘God bless ye,’ Miss Peggie.”

Margaret MacLean did not know whether to be shocked or glad that the passing of a comrade had brought no sign of grief.  Instead of being either, she went on picking up the primroses and wondering.  As for the children, they lay back peacefully in their beds, their eyes laughing riotously.  And every once in a while they would look over at one another, giving the funniest little expressive nods, which seemed to say:  “I know what you’re thinking about, and you know what I’m thinking about, so what’s the need of talking.  But when is it going to happen?”

The House Surgeon brought up her mail; it was an excuse to see her again before his official visit.  “Are the children very much broken up over it?” he asked, anxiously, outside the door.

For answer Margaret MacLean beckoned him and pointed to the eight occupied cots—­unquestionably serene and happy.

“Well, I’ll be—­” began the House Surgeon, retiring precipitously back to the door again; but the nurse put a silencing finger over his lips.

“Hush, dear!  The children are probably clearer visioned than we are.  I have the distinct feeling this morning of being very blind and stupid, while they seem—­oh, so wise.”

The House Surgeon grunted expressively.  “Well, perhaps they won’t take your going away so dreadfully to heart—­now; or theirs, for that matter.”

“I hope not,” and then she smiled wistfully.  “But I thought you told me last night we were all going together?  At any rate, I am not going to tell them anything.  If it must be it must be, and I shall slip off quietly, when the children are napping, and leave the trustees to tell.”

She looked her mail over casually; there were the usual number of advertisements, a letter from one of the nurses who had gone South, and another in an unfamiliar hand-writing.  She tore off the corner of the last, and, running her finger down the flap, she commented: 

“Looks like quality.  A letter outside the profession is a very rare thing for me.”

She read the letter through without a sound, and then she read it again, the House Surgeon watching, the old big-brother look gone for ever from his face, and in its place a worshipful proprietorship.  The effect of the letter was undeniably Aprilish; she looked up at the House Surgeon with the most radiant of smiles, while her eyes spilled recklessly over.

“How did you know it?  How did you know it?” she repeated.

He was trying his best to find out what it was all about when one of the nurses came hurrying down the corridor.

“You are both wanted down in the board-room.  They have called a special meeting of the trustees for nine o’clock; everybody’s here and acting decidedly peculiar, I think.  Why, as I passed the door I am sure I saw the President slapping the Senior Surgeon on the back.  I never heard of anything like this happening before.”