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.
"Oh!" she cried in dismay, for the flower-seller was wizened and unsteady of foot, and she had sent him spinning about in a dizzy fashion. She put out a steadying hand. "Oh . . . !" This time it was in ecstasy; she had spied the primroses in the basket just as the sunshine splashed over the edge of the corner building straight down upon them. Margaret MacLean dropped to one knee and laid her cheek against them. "The happy things—you can hear them laugh! I want all—all I can carry." She looked up quizzically at the flower-seller. "Now how did you ever happen to think of bringing these—to-day?"
A pair of watery old eyes twinkled, thereby becoming amazingly young in an instant, and he wagged his head mysteriously while he raised a significant finger. "Sure, wasn't I knowin', an' could I be afther bringin' anythin' else? But the rest that passes—or stops—will see naught but yellow flowers in a basket, I'm thinkin'." And the flower-seller set to shaking his head sorrowfully.
"Perhaps not. There are the children—"
"Aye, the childher; but the most o' them be's gettin' too terrible wise."
"I know—I know—but mine aren't. I'm going to take my children back as many as I can carry." She stretched both hands about a mass of stems—all they could compass. "See"—she held up a giant bunch—"so much happiness is worth a great deal. Feel in the pocket of my apron and you will find—gold for gold. It was the only money I had in my purse. Keep it all, please." With a nod and a smile she left him, dancing her way back along the still deserted street.
"'Tis the faeries' own day, afther all," chuckled the flower-seller as he eyed the tiny gold disk in his palm; then he remembered, and called after the diminishing figure of the nurse: "Hey, there! Mind what ye do wi' them blossoms. They be's powerful strong magic." And he chuckled again.
The hall-boy, shorn of uniform and dignity, was outside, polishing brasses, when Margaret MacLean reached the hospital door. She stopped for an interchange of grins and greetings.
"Mornin', Miss Peggie."