to allow her to go back to school after
the holidays from a house where there had been sickness.

"Uncle Sidney and Aunt Lucy have very kindly invited you to Thorncroft,"
wrote Mrs. Hirst, "so you will return with Muriel, and will, I hope,
have a pleasant holiday there. It is hard for us all to miss our
Christmas together, but you must be a brave girl, darling, and look
forward to seeing us at Easter instead. I cannot even write to you
often, because I am nursing our invalids, and Father has to disinfect my
letters carefully in the surgery before he considers it safe to forward
them. Milly, however, shall write you a postcard every day, to say how
we are, and you will be constantly in my thoughts, though I may not be
able to do more than send you a brief message."

To Patty it seemed as if the sun had suddenly gone out. That she must
forego all her home joys and spend the holidays with Muriel was indeed a
great hardship.

"Muriel won't want me, I know," she sobbed, "and it won't seem like
Christmas at all to have to spend it at Thorncroft. Oh, how I wish I
could have gone home first, before the children were taken ill, and then
I could have helped to nurse them! Easter is months and months off. I
don't know how I'm going to live till I see them all again."

After one storm of grief, however, Patty, like a sensible girl, dried
her eyes, and tried to put on a bright face and make the best of things
as they were. It seemed no use bemoaning her misery, and spoiling all
her friends' happiness by dwelling on her troubles, so she managed to
interest herself in Enid's packing, and to sympathize with Jean's choice
of Christmas presents, though it was hard to listen to the others' glad
plans when her own had suffered such shipwreck. It is a great
accomplishment to be able to smile outside when we are crying inside,
and I don't believe Patty could have done it if she had not been so
accustomed to forget her own side of a question, and engross herself in
other people's affairs. As it was, her power of self-mastery helped her
to be brave and cheery in spite of her disappointment; but it was not an
easy task, and it cost her best efforts to smother her grief, and keep
up to anything like her usual level of good spirits. It is sometimes
more difficult to practise the little self-denials and do the unlauded
acts of courage than to make one supreme sacrifice while the world
applauds; so I think Patty deserved to be called a heroine