"That just about hits it. Will you please tell me how you, of all people, ever evolved these--ideas--out of Saint Margaret's?" A grim smile tightened the corners of her mouth while she looked across the room to the portrait that hung opposite the Founder's--the portrait of the Old Senior Surgeon. "I had to," she said at last. "When a person is born with absolutely nothing--nothing of the human things a human baby is entitled to--she has to evolve something to live in; a sort of sea-urchin affair with spines of make-believe sticking out all over it to keep prodding away life as it really is. If she didn't the things she had missed would flatten her out into a flabby pulp--just skin and feelings." "And so you make believe that Trustee Day isn't really bad?" "Oh dear, no! But I keep believing it's going to be much better. Did you ever think what it could be like--if the trustees would only make it something more than--a matter of business? Why, it could be as good as any faery-tale come true, with a dozen god-parents instead of one; and think of the wonderful things they could do it they tried. Think--think--and, oh, the fun of it!" She broke off with a little shivering ache. When the picture became so alive that it pulled at one's heart-strings, it was time to stop. But the next moment she was laughing merrily. "Do you know, when I was a little tad and couldn't sleep at night with the pain, I used to make believe I was a 'truster' and say over to myself all the nice, comforting things I wished they would say. It began to sound so real that one day I answered--just as if some one had said something pleasant." "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!"