"Well?" interrogated the House Surgeon, much amused.

"Well, it was the Oldest Trustee, of course; and she raised those
lorgnettes and reminded me that a good child never spoke unless she was
spoken to. I suppose it will take lots and lots of magic to turn them
into god-parents."

"Look here," and the House Surgeon reached across the desk and took a
firm, big-brother grip of her hands, "faery-tales have to have
stepmothers as well as godmothers--think of it that way. And remember
that those kiddies of yours were never born to ride in pumpkin coaches."

"But I'm not reaching out for faery luxuries for them. I want them to
be children--plain, happy, laughing children--with as normal a heritage
as we can scrape together for them. All it needs is the magic of a
little human understanding. That's the most potent magic in the whole
world. Why, it can do anything!"

A little-girl look came into Margaret MacLean's face. It always did
when she was wanting anything very much or was thinking about something
very intensely. It was the hardest kind of a look to resist. She had
often threshed this subject out with the House Surgeon before; for it
was her theory that when a body's material condition was rather poor
and meager there was all the more reason for scraping together what one
could of a spiritual heritage and living thereby.

"And don't you see," she had urged, at least a score of times,
"if we could only teach all the cripples to let their minds
run--free-limbed--over hilltops and pleasant places, their natures
would never need to warp and wither after the fashion of their poor