Ethel turned to look at her and then came a little closer.
"What's the matter? Look at me, child!" The word slipped out involuntarily, and she corrected herself at once. "Miss Wenner, what is the matter? Let me see your hand." And Ethel seized it and pointed to the white dress. There was a slow-spreading, scarlet stain on it.
"No," cried Sarah. "Leave me go. It is nothing. I—I just skinned myself a little. I—"
Ethel firmly opened her fingers. Then Gertrude looked at her other hand. It too was bleeding.
Sarah tried to pull her hands away.
"Ach, it is nothing. Leave me be!"
"It looks to me—" began Ethel slowly.
"As though you had been sliding down the pole in the gym," finished Gertrude.
"I skinned my hand there once before I learned how," said Ethel. "But the gym hasn't been open for practice to-day, and this has just been done. How did you do it?"
Sarah had lost all power to struggle.