“That’s splendid!  You did well, and next winter you can look up another sour spinster and cranky old lady and make them happy,” said Anna, with the approving smile all loved to receive from her.

“My adventures are not a bit romantic, or even interesting, and yet I’ve been as busy as a bee all winter, and enjoyed my work very much,” began Elizabeth, as the President gave her a nod.

“The plan I had in mind was to go and carry books and papers to the people in hospitals, as one of Mamma’s friends has done for years.  I went once to the City Hospital with her, and it was very interesting, but I didn’t dare to go to the grown people all alone, so I went to the Children’s Hospital, and soon loved to help amuse the poor little dears.  I saved all the picture-books and papers I could find for them, dressed dolls, and mended toys, and got new ones, and made bibs and night-gowns, and felt like the mother of a large family.

“I had my pets, of course, and did my best for them, reading and singing and amusing them, for many suffered very much.  One little girl was so dreadfully burned she could not use her hands, and would lie and look at a gay dolly tied to the bedpost by the hour together, and talk to it and love it, and died with it on her pillow when I ‘sung lullaby’ to her for the last time.  I keep it among my treasures, for I learned a lesson in patience from little Norah that I never can forget.

“Then Jimmy Dolan with hip disease was a great delight to me, for he was as gay as a lark in spite of pain, and a real little hero in the way he bore the hard things that had to be done to him.  He never can get well, and he is at home now; but I still see to him, and he is learning to make toy furniture very nicely, so that by and by, if he gets able to work at all, he may be able to learn a cabinet-maker’s trade, or some easy work.

“But my pet of pets was Johnny, the blind boy.  His poor eyes had to be taken out, and there he was left so helpless and pathetic, all his life before him, and no one to help him, for his people were poor and he had to go away from the hospital since he was incurable.  He seemed almost given to me, for the first time I saw him I was singing to Jimmy, when the door opened and a small boy came fumbling in.

“‘I hear a pretty voice, I want to find it,’ he said, stopping as I stopped with both hands out as if begging for more.

“‘Come on.  Johnny, and the lady will sing to you like a bobolink,’ called Jimmy, as proud as Barnum showing off Jumbo.

“The poor little thing came and stood at my knee, without stirring, while I sang all the nursery jingles I knew.  Then he put such a thin little finger on my lips as if to feel where the music came from, and said, smiling all over his white face, ’More, please more, lots of ’em!  I love it!’