Dr. Sedgewick had said that Dorothy would certainly not be fit to sit for it; but when the Sixth went into early breakfast at seven o’clock Dorothy joined them. She was a bit shaky still, and she looked rather white, but there was such radiant happiness in her eyes that she seemed fairly transfigured by it.
The examination was over by ten o’clock, and the girls dispersed to amuse themselves in any way they liked best. Cissie Wray fell upon Dorothy as she came out of the examination room—literally fell upon her—hugging her with ecstasy.
“Dorothy, Dorothy, are you better? Oh, I want to say ‘Thank you!’—I want to shout it at you; and yet it does not seem worth saying, because it is so little to all I feel inside—for your goodness in saving me yesterday.”
“Poor Cissie, you were badly scared,” said Dorothy, and she shivered a little even in the warm sunshine as she thought of the frenzied clutch of Cissie’s thin arms and the agony in her big black eyes.
“Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful! I don’t ever want to go into the sea again, though I am not afraid in the swimming bath.”
“How is Miss Ball?” asked Dorothy, wanting to get Cissie’s attention away from the previous day’s terror.
“She is better, but she is not up yet. And the girls say I nearly drowned her as well as myself, and that we should both have been dead if it had not been for you! Oh dear, how awful it was! I can’t bear to think about it!”
“Then don’t think about it,” said Dorothy, looking down at Cissie with kindness in her eyes. “I can see my father coming by the shrubbery path—shall we go and meet him?”
“Oh, rather!” cried Cissie, skipping along by the side of Dorothy. “Dr. Sedgewick is a dear; he took such lovely care of me yesterday, and teased me about wanting to be a mermaid. I think he is the most wonderful doctor I have ever seen. But I have never had a doctor before that I can remember—so, of course, I have not had much experience.”
Cissie seized upon one of the doctor’s arms, while Dorothy held the other, and they took him all round the grounds. They showed him the gymnasium, the archery and tennis courts, the bowling green, and all the other things which made school so pleasant. Then Cissie had to go off to a botany examination, which was the last of the term’s work for the Fourth, and Dorothy strolled with her father to the seat under the beech tree that overlooked the boys’ playing-fields.