After another broadside for the Doctor, and another for the Doctor’s wife, the boys dispersed, and I went back into the house, where I found the guests all standing in a group about the Doctor, discussing how Mr. Jack Maldon had gone away, and how he had borne it, and how he had felt it, and all the rest of it. In the midst of these remarks, Mrs. Markleham cried: “Where’s Annie!”
No Annie was there; and when they called to her, no Annie replied. But all pressing out of the room, in a crowd, to see what was the matter, we found her lying on the hall floor. There was great alarm at first, until it was found that she was in a swoon, and that the swoon was yielding to the usual means of recovery; when the Doctor, who had lifted her head upon his knee, put her curls aside with his hand, and said, looking around:
“Poor Annie! She’s so faithful and tender-hearted! It’s the parting from her old playfellow and friend—her favorite cousin—that has done this. Ah! It’s a pity! I am very sorry!”
When she opened her eyes, and saw where she was, and that we were all standing about her, she arose with assistance: turning her head, as she did so, to lay it on the Doctor’s shoulder—or to hide it, I don’t know which. We went into the drawing-room, to leave her with the Doctor and her mother; but she said, it seemed, that she was better than
she had been since morning, and that she would rather be brought among us; so they brought her in, looking very white and weak, I thought, and sat her on a sofa.
“Annie, my dear,” said her mother, doing something to her dress. “See here! You have lost a bow. Will anybody be so good as find a ribbon; a cherry-colored ribbon?”
It was the one she had worn at her bosom. We all looked for it—I myself looked everywhere, I am certain—but nobody could find it.
“Do you recollect where you had it last, Annie?” said her mother.
I wondered how I could have thought she looked white, or anything but burning red, when she answered that she had had it safe, a little while ago, she thought, but it was not worth looking for.
Nevertheless, it was looked for again, and still not found. She entreated that there might be no more searching; but it was still sought for, in a desultory way, until she was quite well, and the company took their departure.