She picked up the screaming Norah, and carried her into the dining-room, while nurse came running from the kitchen and her ironing.
All the time that the sobbing little victim of the B. D. S. was being soothed into calmness, and the big swelling wheal on her forehead bathed and tended, Pattie, Mollie, and Kitty—upstairs—looked at one another in frightened silence. Then Mollie said sadly—
"I knew something would happen to Norah. It always does if she says nasty things."
"Rubbish, Mollie! That's nonsense! She fell down because her bolster was so big, and she couldn't see where the stairs came!" cried Pattie.
"I'm going to see where she's hurted herself," announced little Kitty; and she trudged off, leaving Pattie and Mollie to sort the heap of odds and ends that lay on the landing.
They went about it in doleful silence at first.
Then Mollie said, "This is my counterpane—isn't it, Pattie?"
"No; that's Norah's. Don't you see the corner all crumpled up which she holds in her hand when she goes to sleep?"
"Oh dear! oh dear! I don't think, after all, that it's easy having a B. D. S. It seemed just to spoil it all when Norah went thumping down—down, like a big ball."
Pattie gave a little sigh, too, and was putting down the chair she was carrying that she might rest her arms and have room for another deeper sigh, when mother's voice was heard calling—