He nudged Tonino. “I think we’d better help them.”

Tonino nodded. They set off down the ward just as things began to get difficult. Master Spiderman was speeding this way and that, scooping at darting souls, and most of the new mothers, tired as they were, were beginning to sit up and object. They could not seem to see the souls, but they could see Master Spiderman.

“What do you think you’re doing?” several ladies demanded.

Another said, “I’m not letting that madman near my baby!” She picked her howling baby out of its cradle, just as the fluttering maple leaf soul was poised above it, and hugged it to her chest. The maple leaf was forced to swoop on to the next cradle, where Master Spiderman’s butterfly net scooped at it and missed.

“He’s a lunatic,” said the mother in the next bed. “Ring the bell for help.”

“I already did,” said a mother in the bed opposite. “I rang twice now.”

“It’s too bad!” several mothers said. And several more shouted at Master Spiderman to get out or they would have the law on him.

Meanwhile, soul after soul darted away from Master Spiderman and vanished into babies. By this time, only two were left, the oldest and the newest. The oldest leaf was still stunted, though it seemed to have grown a little, but it was evidently bewildered and weak. All its efforts to get into babies were timid and slow, and whenever Master Spiderman’s butterfly net swept towards it, all it seemed able to do was to flutter up towards the ceiling again, where the newest and biggest leaf-shape hovered, perhaps trying to tell the old leaf what to do.

The old soul timorously descended again as Cat and Tonino set off to help it. Master Spiderman pelted back to catch it. But he skidded to a stop when the ward doors clapped open and an awesome voice asked, “And what, pray, is the meaning of this?”

It was the Mother Superior. It did not take the hugeness of her starched headdress, the severity of her dark blue habit, the large silver cross hanging from her waist, or even her six feet of height, to tell you who and what she was. It was obvious. Such was the power of her personality that, as she advanced down the ward, nearly all the babies stopped crying.

The big soul that had been Gabriel de Witt hastily plunged from near the ceiling and was just in time to vanish into the only baby still crying. The mothers who were sitting up all hurriedly lay down again and the one who had picked her baby up guiltily popped it back into its cradle and lay down too. Cat and Tonino, feeling as guilty as the rest, stood still and tried to look as if they were visiting a new little brother or sister. Master Spiderman’s flat mouth hung open as if the Mother Superior had cast a spell on him. But Cat did not think it was magic. As the Mother Superior’s cold eye passed over him, he knew it was pure personality. He wanted to sink into the floor.