The habit of individual, separate thinking had grown rusty, and as she sat before the hearth ideas came slowly. The room was dim—lighted only by the firelight; and in that dimness her mind began to stir and stretch and yawn itself awake, like a creature that had been hibernating through a long, dark winter. Suddenly the widow of the Richest Trustee broke out into a feeble little laugh—a convalescing laugh that acted as if it was just getting about for the first time.
"I haven't the least idea what is the matter with me," she said, addressing the fire, "but I think—I think—I'm becoming alive again."
The fire gave an appreciative chuckle—it even slapped one of the logs on the back; then it sputtered and blazed the harder, just as if it were ashamed of showing any emotion.
"It is funny," agreed the little gray wisp of a woman, "but I actually feel as I used to when I was a little girl and Christmas Eve had come, or Hallowe'en, and—and— What other night in the year was it that I used to feel creepy and expectant—as if something wonderful was going to happen?"
The fire coughed twice, as if it would have liked to remind her that it was May Eve, but felt it might be an intrusion.
"I believe," she continued, speculatively—"I believe I am going to begin to think things and do them again; and what's more, I believe I am going to like doing them."
The fire chuckled again, and danced about for a minute in an absurd fashion; it was so absurd that one of the logs broke a sap-vessel. After that the fire settled down to its intended vocation, that of making dream-pictures out of red and gold flames, and black, charred embers.
The widow of the Richest Trustee watched them happily for a long time, until they became very definite and actual pictures. Then she got up, went to her desk, and wrote two letters.
The first was addressed to "The Board of Trustees of Saint Margaret's
Free Hospital for Children"; the second was addressed to "Miss Margaret
MacLean." They were both sealed and mailed that night.
What befell the other trustees does not matter, either from the standpoint of Fancy or of what happened afterward; moreover, it was nearly midnight, and what occurs after that on May Eve does not count.