And when they came to the smallest of mountain brooks the engineer followed it, down, down, until it had grown into a stream with cowslipped banks; and on and on until it had grown into a river with little boats and sandy shore and leaping fish. Here the engineer stopped the train; and every one who wanted to--and there were none who did not--went paddling; and some went splashing about just as if they could swim. Back in the "special," they climbed a hilltop, slowly, so that the engineer could point out each farm and pasture and stream in miniature that they had seen close by. "That's the wonder of a hilltop," she explained; "you can see everything neighboring each other." And when they reached the crest she clapped her hands. "Oh, children dear, wouldn't it be beautiful to build a house on a hilltop just like this to live in always!" Afterward they rode into deep woods, where the sunlight came down through the trees like splashes of gold; and here the engineer suggested they should have a picnic. As Margaret MacLean stepped out into the hall to look up the dinner-trays she met the House Surgeon. "Dreading it as much as usual?" he asked, in the teasing, big-brother tone; but he looked at her in quite another way. She laughed. "I'm hoping it isn't going to be as bad as the time before--and the time before that--and the time before that." She pushed back some moist curls that had slipped out from under her cap--engineering was hard work--and the little-girl look came into her face. She looked up mischievously at the House Surgeon. "You couldn't possibly guess what I've been doing all morning." The House Surgeon wrinkled his forehead in his most professional manner. "Precautionary disinfecting?" Margaret MacLean laughed again. "That's an awfully good guess, but it's wrong. I've been administering antitoxin for trusteria." In spite of her gay assurance before the House Surgeon, however, it was rather a sober nurse in charge of Ward C who sat down that afternoon with a book of faery-tales on her knee open to the story of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." As for Ward C, it was supremely happy; its beloved "Miss Peggie" was on duty for the afternoon with the favorite book for company; moreover, no one had discovered as yet that this was Trustee Day and that the trustees themselves were already near at hand. A shadow fell athwart the threshold that very moment. Margaret MacLean could feel it without taking her eyes from the book, and, purposefully unmindful of its presence, she kept reading steadily on: "'The paper boat was rocking up and down; sometimes it turned round so quickly that the Tin Soldier trembled; but he remained firm, he did not move a muscle, and looked straight forward, shouldering his musket.'" "Ah, Miss MacLean, may I speak with you a moment?" It was the voice of the Meanest Trustee.