"Bring a light, please," said the doctor, and he disappeared down the stairs. Charlotte lighted a little kitchen lamp and came after him. He bade her stand by while he made his first brief examination.
"I think the blow on her head isn't serious," he said, presently, "but I can't tell where else she may be hurt till I get her up-stairs."
He was strong, and he lifted Celia as if she had been a child, and carried her easily up the steep stairs.
Charlotte led the way to a wide couch in the living-room. As Celia was laid gently upon it she opened her eyes.
Half an hour later, John Lansing Birch, in his oldest clothes and wearing a rather disreputable soft hat pulled down over his forehead, with his hands and face excessively dirty and a lunch-pail on his arm, pushed open the kitchen door. "_Phew-w!_ Something's burning!" he shouted. "Celia--Charlotte--where are you all? Great Scott, what a smudge!"
He strode across the room and lifted from the stove a kettle of potatoes, from which the water had boiled away some minutes before.
"First returns from the amateur cooking district!" he muttered, glancing critically about the kitchen.
Something else in the way of overcooked viands seemed to assail his nostrils, and he jerked open the oven door. A tin of blackened rolls puffed out at him their pungent smoke.
"Well, what--" he was beginning with the natural irritation of the hungry man, who has been anticipating his supper all the way home, and sees it in ruin before his eyes, when Charlotte appeared in the doorway.
"Well, what is it? Celia got a headache and left you in charge? Everything's burnt up--I can tell you that----"
"She fell down the cellar stairs and----"
"Where is she?" Lunch-pail and hat went down on the floor as Lanse got rid of them and seized Charlotte's arm.
"Up in her room. Doctor Churchill's there. He's sent for Doctor Forester."
"Churchill--Forester," repeated Lanse, as if dazed. "Poor old girl--is she much hurt?"
"She's broken her knee, I tell you," Charlotte repeated. "Of course she's much hurt. She's suffering dreadfully. She hit her head, too. She was unconscious at first. I was all alone with her."
Lanse started for the door, then hesitated. "Shall I go up?"
"The doctor wants to see you as soon as you are home. He's waiting for Doctor Forester. He's made Celia as comfortable as he can, but wants our regular doctor here, he says, before he does up her knee. I don't see why. I wanted him to fix it himself."