“But I must know. It is so unlike you. Mr. Carington is in no danger.”
“I know. I don’t care whether he is in danger or not. I do care! It isn’t he! It’s—it’s me—it’s I. I can’t tell. I am ashamed. Are all women this way? Oh, I hate to be such a fool!”
Anne sat down. “I don’t quite understand, dear; but, no matter. What is clear is that you are going to have hysterics.”
“No—no! Kiss me, aunty. I am so miserable! Couldn’t I get to bed quietly?”
“Yes. Your mother is busy. Come.” And thus, when at last dinner was on the table, and Mrs. Lyndsay asked for her daughter, she was told that Rose had a headache, and then, when she got up to go to her, that she was asleep, which may or may not have been true.
At dinner, between what Carington had told Lyndsay and Jack’s very clear statement, the story came out plainly enough. The boy was praised to his heart’s content, and when Anne had said that this was courage in the right place, and Carington refused to sleep until he had thanked him, Jack felt that, including the bearskin as a part of the day’s blessings, life had no more to give. As for Dick, he settled the genus and the species of the bear, and Ned sat in a corner and meditated, seeing the whole day’s events in pictures, with curious dramatic clearness.
Next morning the doctor arrived, and further reassured them. Mr. Carington was in for a day or two in bed, and then might be out in the hammock.
Of course Ellett had been informed the night before, and had come down at once. When again, next day, he returned, there was a long consultation, and it was decided that the patient was so well that Ellett might move down and take care of him, that the doctor would come back and stay a few days, and that Mr. Lyndsay and his family might go away on Sunday night. To this plan Mrs. Lyndsay somewhat eagerly assented, for reasons of which she said nothing, an unusual course for the little lady.
Thus, on Friday and Saturday, what with fishing and packing, every one was busy.
“Preliminaries are the bane of existence,” said Anne, “but postliminaries are worse”; and thereupon she asked Ned if that word was in “Worcester,” and declared for a dictionary of her own making.
Mrs. Lyndsay had no opinion of Anne’s capacities in any practical direction, and declined for a day her help in the care of Mr. Carington. But now she was over-busy, and thus it chanced on the next morning, being Saturday, that she asked Anne to look after their wounded guest. They had purposely brought no maids with them, and, even with all of Rose’s help, Anne had been obliged to assist in packing, for, as concerned her books, she was as old-maidish and precise as are some other of her corps about what Anne regarded as quite unimportant properties. To escape, at last, out of the bustle of packing, and to find some one to talk to or be talked to, was entirely to her taste.