Mabel--well, this was just where the magnificence of Mabel asserted itself. She had done a thing which not one of the people who were arranging about getting Cuthbert upstairs and into bed had thought of. At the first sight of his white face and some blankets with which he had been padded into a carriage, after the accident which had thrown him from his bicycle and broken three ribs, Mabel turned and went upstairs. She put everything out of the way for his being carried across the room, and finally tugged his bed into a convenient place for his being laid there. She dragged back quilts and procured more pillows, so that when Cuthbert finally reclined there he was eminently comfortable.
"You'll have to haul out my bed, it's in a corner," he had sung out as they carried him in, and there was the bed already prepared for him, and Mabel with an extra pillow in her arms.
"Good old Mabs," said Cuthbert. "I promote you to staff nurse on the spot."
Mabel was more scared than any one, not knowing yet about the ribs or Cousin Harry's tale of the navy men who went about with broken ones, and rather enjoyed the experience. She was so scared that it seemed easy to stand quiet and be perfectly dignified.
"Come, Mabs dear, and help me to look for bandages. The doctor wants one good big one," said the recovered voice of Mrs. Leighton.
Mr. Leighton went about stirring up everybody to doing things. He was very angry with Betty and Jean. "Any one can sit crying in a corner," he declared, "and we may be so glad it's no worse."
"It's our first shock," said Betty, who had rather admired the sentiment of that speech of Elma's.
Mr. Leighton could not help smiling a trifle.
"Well," he exclaimed kindly, "we don't want to get accustomed to them. I should really much rather you would behave properly this time. You might take a lesson from Mabel."
Nobody knew till then what a brick Mabel had been. To have their father commend them like that, the girls would stand on their heads. Lucky Mabel! There was some merit after all in being the eldest. One knew evidently what to do in an emergency. The truth was that Mabel's temperament was so nicely balanced that she could act, as well as think, with promptitude. She had always admired dignity and what Mr. Leighton called "efficiency," whereas Jean and Betty believed most in the deep feelings of people who squealed the loudest.