"Just wait awhile. Many people can be heroic in great things, but are sadly deficient when it comes to the little things," said Grace, with her usual caution. "I believe I could be a heroine myself, if some grand opportunity came," she added, smiling. "Oh, Grace, don't trifle so; you know this is a very serious matter with Mr. and Mrs. Hayden, and they are both doing nobly," cried Kate, with tears in her eyes. "Well, queen Katherine, I don't mean any harm, and you must not think anything of my brusque speeches. As you know, there is a tinge of skepticism in me which I can not help, and my ideals are so much higher than the realities of life, that I am always painfully conscious of the difference." "Well, what would you wish Mrs. Hayden to be like, for instance, in order to come up to your ideal of the heroic woman?" asked Kate in a softened tone. "Kate dear, I love Mrs. Hayden as much as you do, and would not for a moment disparage her virtues, but it strikes me as a philosophical fact that as a rule, human nature can and does display wonderful courage in great emergencies, but fails miserably in details, and this ought not to be so. Nothing would please me better than to see one life prove that I am wrong." "That is all true, Gracie, about humanity in general, but she is lovely, and I am sorry for her having to be lame all her life. It's a perfect shame that she must lose even her health, for of course she will never be strong again." "Another defect to be noted somewhere in the universal economy. It seems to me we are pretty helpless creatures, generally speaking, for it all appears to be a matter of chance whether we get well or not, when we _do_ get sick," mused Grace, bent upon drawing her own conclusions. Poor girl! Life had been rather hard for her, and she judged it as it appeared, and there _did_ seem a great flaw somewhere which she was trying her best to solve by noting every phase of life as she found it. Naturally bright, keenly intellectual and very independent, she was a philosopher as well as an artist, and always ready for a tilt with the world on its most petted opinions. Hers was a reasoning mind that observed all inconsistencies and discrepancies in anything she studied, and there was generally a little acidity in her judgment of the world and its bigoted ways. "I can't see why Mrs. Hayden should not be cured completely," continued Kate, ignoring her companion's last shot, "for it wasn't so bad that anybody knew of until she got up."