"I--I--am all right, Jerry." Katherine had heard. "The car just brushed me; hard--enough to throw me--on my back. That's all."
"That's all," repeated Lucy indignantly. "Enough, I should say. Musn't talk much, Kathie. You'll be in your room and in bed right away."
"Glad of it. So--tired," mumbled Katharine, and closed her eyes again.
The injured girl was carried into the Hall just as a driving rain began to descend. Miss Remson promptly telephoned for her own physician and bustled about, an efficient first aid, until he arrived.
Established temporarily on the living room davenport, Katherine braced up wonderfully under the wise little manager's treatment. To her plea that she could walk upstairs to her room, if assisted by two of her friends, Miss Remson would not listen.
"Wait until the doctor comes, my dear," she insisted. "He will know what's best for you."
News of the accident having spread through the Hall, girls hurried from all parts of the house to the living room, where they were promptly headed off by Lucy, Marjorie and Jerry from intruding upon Katherine. Thus far neither the Sans nor the four freshmen who roomed at the Hall had put in an appearance.
The arrival of Doctor Thurston, a large, kindly man of about forty, was a relief to all concerned. Very gently he lifted Katherine in his strong arms and carried her upstairs to her room.
"She has had a narrow escape," he told her anxious friends, a little later. "Her back is sprained. It is a wonder it was not broken. Two weeks in bed and she will be all right again. Students who drive their own cars should go slowly along the campus part of the road. There are always girls in plenty on foot. The one who ran her down must have had very poor policy not even to sound a horn."
As a result of a private conference among the Lookouts that evening, a trained nurse arrived on Sunday afternoon to look after their injured friend. Ronny, with her usual magnificent generosity, wished to take the expenses for Katherine's care and treatment upon herself. To this her chums would not hear. "We all love Kathie," Muriel declared. "I think we ought to divide her expenses among us." Lucy Warner was particularly pleased with Muriel's proposal. She had earned an extra hundred dollars that summer by doing typing in the evenings. She felt, therefore, that she held the right to offer a portion of it in the cause of her particular friend.