"Never again?"
"Never."
"It's a bargain, then. Now you may all come down."
Patty reared the ladder against the wall, and held it steady while her companions descended. She felt in good spirits, for she had enjoyed the fun of keeping them imprisoned, and had been able by guile to extort a promise which her strongest protests had hitherto failed to gain from them.
"They don't know I hid the ladder," she said to herself as they all hurried in to tea, "and I don't mean to tell them. It's a grand victory for me. I shall hold them strictly to their word, and now at last we shall have a little peace in No. 7, and I shan't have to lie awake every night listening in fear and trembling for Miss Rowe."
CHAPTER VIII
A Great Disappointment
As December passed by, and the term drew to a close, Patty's impatience began almost to get the better of her. No thirteen weeks had ever appeared so long. She felt as if she had been away from home for years, and she yearned for a sight of all the loved faces. Letters, though very well in their way, were unsatisfactory things, especially the children's, which contained little news for the amount of paper covered, and consisted mostly of wishes for her return, with a whole page of crosses meant to represent kisses at the end. Now at last, however, she could count the remainder of the term by days instead of weeks, and her fancy was busy painting in rainbow colours a picture of her arrival, first at the station, where perhaps her father would meet her, and then at the dear, well-known door, where her mother would be waiting to clasp her in the warmest hug, and all the younger ones would be watching eagerly to welcome her back again. It was such an enthralling prospect that Patty's eyes shone whenever she thought about it, and she sometimes executed a little dance of delight in the privacy of her cubicle, to let off some of the effervescence of her spirits.
"Only four days more!" she said to herself one night. "I suppose I shall manage to get through them somehow! I wonder if it seems as long to Mother and the others! I've never looked forward to anything so much in my life. It makes me wild with joy to think it's so near."
Poor Patty! In the midst of her pleasant anticipations a bitter disappointment was in store for her. It seemed hard indeed that all her cherished plans must suddenly and ruthlessly be destroyed; but it takes a mingled warp and woof of joy and sorrow to weave the patterns of our lives, and a piece of dark background is sometimes needed to bring the brighter parts into full relief. The very next morning a letter arrived from Mrs. Hirst, containing such bad news that Patty had to read it twice over before she entirely grasped the full meaning of its tidings. Three of the younger children were ill with scarlet fever, Rowley seriously so, and Robin and Kitty quite poorly enough to cause a certain amount of anxiety. The small patients had been carefully isolated, and so far the other children were well; but they were of course liable to develop the complaint, and needed careful watching. In the circumstances it was quite impossible for Patty to come home. She must not venture within danger of infection, for even if she did not take scarlet fever herself, it would not be right to allow her to go back to school after the holidays from a house where there had been sickness.