"What a lot of things you'll have to take back to school, Ju," Nell said, as she added her contribution in the shape of a pair of crochet cuffs and a doll's wool jacket.
But Judy only flashed her a reproachful glance, and turned her face to the wall for the rest of the evening.
That was what had been hanging over her so heavily all this long fortnight in bed—the thought of school in the future.
"What's going to happen to me when I get better, Esther?" she asked next morning, in a depressed way, when her stepmother came to see her. "Is he saving up a lot of beatings for me? And shall I have to go back the first week?"
Esther reassured her.
"You won't go back this quarter at all, very likely not next either, Judy dear. He says you shall go away with some of the others for a change till you get strong; and, between you and me, I think its very unlikely you, will go back ever again."
With this dread removed, Judy mended more rapidly, surprising even the doctor with her powers of recuperation.
In three weeks she was about the house again, thin and great-eyed, but full of nonsense and even mischief once more. The doctor's visits ceased; he said she had made a good recovery so far, but should have change of surroundings, and be taken a long way from sea air.
"Let her run wild for some months, Woolcot," he said at his last visit; "it will take time to quite shake off all this and get her strength and flesh back again."
"Certainly, certainly; she shall go at once," the Captain said.