"Here you are," he added a moment later, laying her on the bed in the parlour. "Scott, run call your mother. Bring a light, Molly. We'll soon see what is the matter."
There were no bones broken, and in a little while Lloyd sat up, white and dizzy. Then she walked across the room, and looked at herself in the little mirror hanging over a shelf, on which stood a bouquet of stiff wax flowers. It was hung so high and tilted forward so much, and the wax flowers were in the way, so that she could not get a very satisfactory view of her wounds, but she saw enough to make her feel like an old soldier home from the wars, with the marks of many battles upon her.
A bandage wet with arnica was tied around her head, over a large knot that was rapidly swelling larger. Several strips of court-plaster covered the cut on her temple. One cheek was scratched, and she was stiff and sore from many bruises.
"But not half so stiff as you'll be in the morning," Mrs. Appleton assured her, cheerfully. "All that side of your body that struck against the manger is black and blue."
"I think I'll go to bed," said the Little Colonel, faintly. "This day has been long enough, and I don't want anything else to happen to me. Fallin' through a trap-doah and havin' my mothah leave me is enough fo' one while. I think I need her moah than Aunt Jane does. You'll have to sleep with me to-night, Betty. I wouldn't stay down heah alone fo' anything."
It was very early to go to bed, scarcely more than half-past seven, when Betty blew out the candle and climbed in beside the Little Colonel. She lay for a long time, listening to the croaking of the frogs, thinking that Lloyd had forgotten her troubles in dreamland, until a mournful little voice whispered, "Say, Betty, are you asleep?"
"No; but I thought you were."
"I was, for a few minutes, but that dreadful false face of Molly's woke me up. I dreamed it was chasing me, and I seemed to be falling and falling, and somebody screamed at me 'Look out! The witches will catch you!' It frightened me so that I woke up all a tremble. I know I am safe, here in bed with you, but I'm shaking so hard that I can't go to sleep again. Oh, Betty, you don't know how much I want my mothah! I'll nevah leave her again as long as I live. My head aches, and I'm so stiff and soah I can't tu'n ovah!"