“Oh,” cried Mary Frances, “oh, dear! I ought to have told mother. I remember tripping over the vines here. Are you much hurt, Mother dear?”
“Not much,” she replied, but as she made an effort to move, she sank back with a little sigh.
“It isn’t a bad sprain, dear,” said the father, examining her ankle, “but you ought not walk another step.”
“Oh, the poor children will be so disappointed!”
“That’s just like mother!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “Never to think of herself first!”
“I know what you and I can do, Father,” said Billy. “Let’s make a ‘sedan chair,’ and carry mother home.”
“That’s a good idea, Son—we’ll leave the girls and the lunch; and if the doctor says she may come, I’ll drive mother out late in the afternoon after she has rested.”
“Oh, no, let us go with you!” cried Eleanor and Mary Frances together.
“It will make me so much happier, girls,” said the mother, “if you will stay and try to enjoy yourselves. Billy will be back soon, and maybe you can have a bunch of wild flowers ready to take home when you come this afternoon. I’m not hurt seriously, but I think a hot-water bath and bandage for this ankle will prevent further trouble.”