He might have known Patricia would never be content to sit idle, when just at hand was so much of pain and suffering to be relieved.

“Isn’t it exactly like Patricia?” Miss Kirby sighed, wearily.

“Yes,” the doctor’s voice was very gentle, “I think it is—­exactly like Patricia.”  Crossing the room, he carefully loosened Patricia’s grasp, taking Totty from her.

Patricia stirred and opened her eyes.  “Daddy!  Oh, I am glad you’re back!  But, please, please, be very careful not to wake Totty; I’m so afraid she’ll get to crying again.”

The doctor laid Totty beside Norma.  “Suppose you come downstairs, Pat, and explain this invasion of the premises to your aunt and me,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

Sitting on the arm of her father’s chair, Patricia told her story.

“Have—­you been in your room, Aunt Julia?” she asked.

“I have, Patricia.”

“I am sorry about Custard, Aunt Julia; but Archibald wouldn’t be comforted without him; he wanted his—­mother.”

Miss Kirby thought of the long dining-room down at the hotel, turned into a hospital ward; where on this Christmas eve more than one mother was lying very near the borders of the undiscovered country.

“And I had to take your room, Aunt Julia,” Patricia went on, “so as to have two communicating ones.  I hope you don’t mind much?”

And Miss Kirby had not the heart to admit how much, in her present weariness of mind and body, she did care.

The doctor patted Patricia’s cheek.  “I thought Mrs. Brown was keeping those children wonderfully out of the way.  I wish their poor mothers could have known how well they were being cared for.”

Patricia drew a quick breath of pleasure.  “And we’ll keep them over Christmas, Daddy?”

“That depends—­upon various things.  By the way, where do you sleep to-night, Pat?”

“Oh, I’ll go into the spare-room, with Aunt Julia,” Patricia responded, cheerfully.

Miss Kirby stifled a sigh; and hoped that Patricia’s activities would not recommence too early the next morning.

It was not Patricia who woke Miss Kirby the next morning.

Custard, waking early, and finding himself in such unaccustomed surroundings, decided to look for his young mistress.  Having been permitted on one bed seemed to Custard sufficient warrant for getting on another.  Miss Kirby woke with a start to find a little wriggling object standing between herself and Patricia, while a small moist tongue did active and alternate service on both their faces.

Her shriek of dismay awoke Patricia.

“Aunt Julia!” Patricia was shaking with laughter, “I’ll tell Daddy—­how you woke me up, playing with Custard!”

“He’s the most—­” Miss Kirby dived beneath the bed-clothes.  “Take him away, Patricia!”

From across the hall came the shrill blast of a trumpet.  Custard, his forefeet firmly planted on Miss Kirby’s chest, his head cocked enquiringly, promptly barked a defiant response.