"My eye, Gerry! You won't half have a lovely countenance to-morrow morning!" was all she said.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE LOWER FIFTH MAKES AMENDS
Gerry was escorted in safety to the sickroom, where Sister's magical lotion eased the pain of her swollen nose and considerably improved her appearance. A strong dose of sal volatile brought back a little colour to her pale cheeks and a feeling of strength to her sadly wobbling legs. Then she was established upon a comfortable sofa in front of the sick-room fire and left to the enjoyment of a first-class sick-room tea—the sort kept for special convalescents, Sister informed her. As it consisted of hot buttered toast, superfinely thin bread and butter, apricot jam, shortbread biscuits, and sponge-cakes, Gerry agreed with her that it was certainly a great improvement upon ordinary schoolroom fare.
Downstairs in the dining-hall little else was discussed that tea-time but the subject of Gerry's pluck. A great change of feeling towards the Lower Fifth girl was taking place. Everybody realised that if it had not been for Gerry's presence of mind and extraordinary courage, many of the girls might have been bitten by poor Bruno. Whether the dog was really suffering from madness or only from some minor distemper remained to be proved. But those who had seen him that afternoon had little doubt upon the subject. He had been unaccountably moody and irritable for some days past—his surly behaviour in the gymnasium a couple of days previously had only been one incident out of many—and the way he had suddenly run amok when the headmistress was about to take him for a walk that afternoon pointed to the supposition that he was really suffering from rabies.
"Mad? In course he was mad! Think I don't know a mad dog when I see one?" said Bennett, when questioned upon the subject by Dorothy and Phyllis, as he was taking away the muddy boots from the lobby just before tea. "If it hadn't been for that there young lady, there'd have been some humans mad as well—and serve some of them right!" he added, with a sour glance. For although the servants did not know the full ins and outs of Gerry's ostracism, yet they were well aware that "little Miss Wilmott" had been having anything but a happy time during her first term at Wakehurst Priory.
But Wakehurst Priory had thoroughly repented of its ways now! Gerry was the heroine of the hour, and there was considerable danger of the school losing its head in the other direction and making a popular idol of her. Even Dorothy and Phyllis were penitent, and openly acknowledged their remorse in the Lower Fifth sitting-room after tea that evening. As it was a Saturday evening there was, of course, no school work to be prepared, and the form was at liberty to discuss to its heart's content the subject which was occupying its mind so entirely.
It was Hilda Burns who made the suggestion that appealed most strongly to the form.
"I think we ought to make her a public apology," she announced dramatically, "to let the whole school know what beasts we have been." And her idea was taken up with much acclamation by the other members of the Lower Fifth.