"Oh, mother didn't know!" she sobbed. "Mother didn't guess what terrible things were happening! Oh, forgive her! Forgive her!"
The Doctor came to her side. "Too much excitement for the patient," he reminded her. "Don't you think you'd better go and lie down for a while, and have a little rest?"
A startled look. And Gwendolyn put out a staying hand to her mother. Then—"Moth-er is tired," she assented. "She's tireder than I am. 'Cause it was hard work going round and round Robin Hood's Barn."
The Doctor hunted a small wrist and felt the pulse in it. "That's all right," he said to her mother in an undertone. "Everything's still pretty real to her, you see. But her pulse is normal," He laid cool fingers across her forehead. "Temperature's almost normal too."
Gwendolyn felt that she had not made herself altogether clear. She hastened to explain. "I mean," she said, "when moth-er was carrying that society bee in her bonnet."
Confusion showed in the Doctor's quick glance from parent to parent. Then, "I think I'll just drop down into the pantry," he said hastily, "and see how that young nurse from over yonder is getting along." He jerked a thumb in the direction of the side window as he went out.
Gwendolyn wondered just who the young nurse was. She opened her lips to ask; then saw how painfully her mother had colored at the mere mention of the person in question, and so kept silence.
The Doctor gone, her father came to her mother's side and patted a shoulder. "Well, we shan't ever say anything more about that bee," he declared, laughing, yet serious enough. "Shall we, Gwendolyn!"
"No." She blinked, puzzling over it a little.
"There! It's settled." He bent and kissed his wife. "You thought you were doing the best thing for our little girl—I know that, dear. You had her future in mind. And it's natural—and right—for a mother to think of making friends—the right kind, too—and a place in the social world for her daughter. And I've been short-sighted, and neglectful, and—"