About the candle-lighted tree Patricia's small guests circled admiringly. It had been a merry Christmas for the little travel-wrecked strangers; and now, with the tree, had come the culminating point of this long happy day.
"Isn't it pretty?" Norma came to lean against Patricia. "I wish Mama could see it."
"You must remember to tell her all about it," Patricia answered.
"Will I see her to-morrow?" Norma asked longingly.
"Perhaps," Patricia said; and when presently her father had to leave them, to go down to the hotel, she went with him to the door. "Daddy, you'll be back soon?"
"As soon as possible, dear."
"And—you think—with good news for them—all?"
"I hope so, dear."
Patricia went back to the library with sober face. "But at least," she thought, taking Totty on her lap, "they'll have had their Christmas."
It was far from soon before the doctor returned. Patricia's charges were in bed and asleep. Custard, who had been looking forward to bedtime all day, had retired to his basket—a disillusioned dog. To-night Archibald was finding all the solace needed in a gaily painted Noah's Ark. Miss Kirby was lying down in the sitting-room,—she had not found it a day of unbroken calm,—so that Patricia was alone in the library when her father returned.