"How good of them all--how kind! Poor little Nina Behrends presented me with her `injy-ruber' before tea. It is so dirty that it would spoil anything it touched, but it was sweet of the little thing to think of it. A note from Carrie. Poor old Elsie--fancy sending me this! What a nice frame; I'll put your photograph in it, Bertha. Slate-pencils! does she think I am going to do sums in the holidays? Oh, Bertha, don't think me horrid, but people seem to me to have a very queer idea of comfort! Miss Margaret sent up strawberry jam and cake for my tea, as if anything to _eat_ could make up for not seeing Mother!--or pencils, or books, or stamps. I'd give all the stationery in the world if I could only wake up and find it was a dream, and that I was really going home!" "I don't think that is quite the right way to look at it," said Bertha, seating herself elegantly on a chair, and speaking in her precise, little, grown-up manner. "We don't expect these things to `make up'; they are not of much value in themselves, but you must think of their meaning, and that is that we all love you, and are sorry for you, and want to do everything in our power to help you." "Yes, yes, I know; you are all angels, and I am a wretch!" cried poor Mildred dismally. "I don't deserve that you should be so kind. I should like to be grateful and patient, but I can't! Bertha, if you were in my place, and had to stay here at school all alone, without even Lois or a single one of the girls, what would you do?" Bertha reflected. "I think I should cry a good deal at first," she said honestly, "and lie awake at nights, and have a headache, but I should try to be resigned. I have never had anything very hard to bear, and sometimes I have almost wished that I had. I don't mean, of course, that I want anyone belonging to me to fall ill like your brother. I should like a trouble that affected myself alone, so that I might see how well I could bear it. I love to read about people who have had terrible trials, and have been brave and heroic, and overcome them all. I have an ambition to see if I could imitate them." "Well, I haven't," said Mildred, "not a bit; and you won't like it either, Bertha, when it comes to your turn! Besides, I don't see that there is much chance of being heroic in living alone by yourself in a ladies' school. Heroes have to fight against armies, and plagues, and terrible calamities, and I have to face only dullness and disappointment. Even if I bear them well it will be no more than is expected of me. ... There would be nothing heroic about it!" Bertha knit her brows in thoughtful fashion.