“They are about the pluckiest girls that I ever knew,” continued Madison. “If they were my sisters, I should be mighty proud of them, I can tell you. I’ve no doubt that you are too, and are doing all you can to help.” “There is nothing I can do,” said Peter, gloomily. “Just lying here and looking out at the trees and wishing I was out there. And I’ve been wanting Sirius so much and wishing he could come to me, and now I’ll never see him again.” He turned his face away as he had done before. “Peter,” said his friend, “I like you and I think there’s good stuff in you. Here’s a chance for you to show it. You can be a hero just as much as Sirius was, though in a very different way. You have a good deal to bear. A broken leg is no small matter, and the loss of your dog is a great sorrow to you, but if you try to be brave about it all, and try to make things easier for your sisters while you are laid up instead of worrying them in any way, I think you will be doing a good deal. I know it’s hard. We men are not very patient, and we don’t bear pain and discomfort as well as women do. Do you know that?” “No,” said Peter, scornfully; “that can’t be!” “Indeed it is so. If one of your sisters had broken her leg and were lying here, she would probably be three times as patient as either you or I should be.” “Honor or Vic, perhaps,” remarked Peter, “but not Katherine.” “Well, I’m not able to judge of that, of course, but I wish you would show that our sex occasionally does know how to behave under trying circumstances. I wish you’d do your best to be a hero. I was ill once, and when I got well, they told me I had nearly driven them all crazy,—I was so impatient and exacting,—so you see I don’t exactly practise what I preach. But that was a good while ago.” “I wish you’d come to see me again,” said Peter, when his new friend rose to take leave. “You may say that girls are so fine, and all that, but I’d like to talk to you once in a while. I want to ask you something. I think I’ll ask you now. Don’t you think it’s pretty mean that I’m so much younger than the others, and that the girls have to work, when if I’d been the eldest I could have taken care of them?” “My dear boy,” said Roger Madison, “depend upon it, you are placed in the family just where you are most needed. God knows better than we do about such things, as He does about everything else, and He intended you to be of use just where you are. And I think He means you to begin at once to be of use; and you can be so by being as brave as Sirius was. There are several kinds of courage and they are equally good. The courage to be patient and cheerful and kind when you don’t feel like it counts for as much in the eyes of God as the courage which saves a life. I don’t often talk like this, but I’m interested in you, Peter, and I want you to be the man I think you have it in you to be. Good-bye. I’ll come in again to-morrow, if you like.” CHAPTER XV. VICTORIA MEETS WITH DIFFICULTIES.