She turned her head and looked up into the kind face of the trained nurse and smiled her most grateful smile, for she dared not speak. The white-capped woman smiled back and silently held forward a plate on which was some carefully cut up food. Then she forked a morsel and held it to Mary Jane’s lips, which opened and closed upon it with an eagerness that was almost greedy, so famished was she.
“How queer it is!” thought the little girl, “that anybody should bother that way about just me!” then swallowed another mouthful of the delicious chicken. A bit of roll followed the chicken, and after that a glass of milk. With every portion so administered, Mary Jane’s fatigue and dizziness disappeared till, by the time the nurse had fed her all that the plate contained, she felt so rested and refreshed she fancied that she could have sat on thus forever, if Bonny-Gay had so needed.
“Oh! how good I feel!”
Bonny-Gay was awake at last, and, of her own accord, withdrew her hand from Mary Jane’s clasp.
“Why—why, is that you, Mary Jane? Why doesn’t somebody make it light in here? How came you—Oh! I remember. You came to see me and I went to sleep. I don’t know what made me do that. Wasn’t very polite, was it? Now, I’ll get up and be dressed and then we’ll play something.”
But as she tried to rise she sank back in surprise.
“That’s queer. There’s something the matter with me. One of my legs feels—it doesn’t feel at all. Seems as if it was a marble leg, like ‘Father George’s.’ Whatever ails me?”
Mary Jane’s answer was prompt enough, though the nurses would have suppressed it if they had had time.
“I guess it’s broken. That’s all.”
“Broken! My leg? What do you mean?”