Mrs. Gordon had little time to devote to Rosie, once assured that she was safe, for Marian, after that awful second of paralyzed horror, had sunk down almost fainting on a chair, oblivious to all around her. Lucy ran for water and patted her forehead with a moistened handkerchief, while the girls gathered about, alarmed and sympathetic, offering each one a different suggestion in excited whispers. Marian's failure to rise to the occasion of Rosie's need was kindly attributed to her being almost an invalid, and only exclamations of pity followed her, when at last she was able to be helped to her feet and up-stairs with Mrs. Gordon's arm about her shoulders.
Rosie was too shaken to stay, besides being dripping wet, so two of the guests volunteered to walk home with her, as Sergeant Wyatt's house was only a short way off.
"We won't be gone more than ten minutes, Lucy," they assured their hostess, who began to feel doubtful about her little party ever taking place.
Mrs. Gordon came back from Marian's room to urge every one to sit down at the table. "Marian is all right," she said, "and Margaret is waiting to bring things in. Sit down, all of you, and I will just see that Rosie has enough warm clothes on to go home."
Rosie was standing by the front door with Lucy and several of the girls still surrounding her, when down the stairs came Marian, looking pretty pale and holding on to the banister, but carrying under one arm a huge cardboard box. Lucy looked at her in astonishment and saw that her face was as quiet and determined as it had been on the day of Bob's departure. Marian went straight up to Rosie and held out the big box to her, saying, "Please take this, Rosie. It's a present, because I'm sorry your dress is spoiled. If I had had any sense it wouldn't have been."
In a hushed silence Rosie took hold of the box with uncertain fingers. But as she fumbled with the lid and, opening it, half revealed the glories within, she flushed red with pleasure and sinking down on the floor lifted out the lovely rose-colored dress with a sigh of wondering delight. She was almost Marian's size, and no normal girl could have resisted that dress, especially one who had so few pretty things come her way as the Sergeant's little daughter.
"Oh, thank you!" she breathed, her eyes raised to Marian as to a fairy godsister as she put back the dress and struggled, in a fluttering shower of tissue-paper, to her feet.
The burst of enthusiasm which greeted this generous act was echoed with unbounded rejoicing in Lucy's heart. She could hardly wait until Rosie was gone and the others had started back toward the dining-room to catch her cousin by the arm and whisper, "Oh, Marian, you're a brick."
All during the last half hour, since Marian had stood weakly helpless in the face of Rosie's danger, Lucy had been struggling with her feelings, vainly trying to excuse her cousin's cowardice and only succeeding in feeling unsympathetic and disappointed. But all in a moment now Lucy saw that Marian had been as little satisfied with her conduct as she herself, and had taken prompt and heroic measures to redeem it. No one who had seen Marian trying on that taffeta dress would have doubted that it took a generous effort to give it away before she had even worn it. She might have given any one of a dozen dresses as good as new, and far better than Rosie's little muslin, but she chose the only one she really cared to keep.