ero who would perhaps
be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the
whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm
down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains
high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he
had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he
really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such
simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the
life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?

As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice
to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one
quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about,
just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great
sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while
the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife
would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that
perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her
Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And,
meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the
captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she
had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and
try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from
his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the
conquest of self.

Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey
and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the
occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor
certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey,
with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself,
that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.

Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts
and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and
there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of
pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town
with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could
not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to
meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and
listening to the sound of approach