This was news with a vengeance! It almost made me jump out of bed, crippled as I was, and my mother had to put her hand on my shoulder to restrain me.
“What! sell Mount Pleasant?” I ejaculated.
“Yes,” she replied.
“And all of us go home together, instead of my being sent to England alone to school?” I continued.
“That was what your father thought of,” said my mother in answer to this question of mine; “but your illness has made him alter his mind somewhat, as you will learn when you are able to get up and move about. You must now, dear, remain quiet, and not excite yourself; otherwise, your recovery will be retarded and that will worry your father more.”
“All right, mother, I promise to be good,” I said resolutely, nestling down amongst the pillows which had been comfortably fixed around me, and trying to be as still as a mouse. “I will do all that you and the doctor tells me, if you’ll only make me well again.”
“That’s my brave boy,” she murmured softly, smoothing my poor hairless head with her gentle hand in such a caressing way that it made me feel drowsy, and in another minute I had dropped off into a sound sleep. I did not wake again until some hours afterwards, when I was so refreshed and hungry that I was able to demolish a large basin of jelly-like chicken broth with some thin toast, which did me much good.
From that time I gradually got better; but my recovery was very slow, on account of the thorough shaking I had received from my fall, and it was quite another fortnight before I was able to be moved downstairs and allowed to sit in the verandah, where the fresh breezes from the sea and the scent of the flowers on the terrace completed my cure.
For some days even after this, however, I had to keep perfectly quiet, in accordance with the orders of Doctor Martin, who feared that I had sustained some injury to my spine in addition to my other contusions. This suspicion of his turned out, fortunately for me, to be groundless; but the rest he enjoined was very much out of keeping with my buoyant and excitable nature, which was fidgety in the extreme.
Still, this period of convalescence was by no means irksome to me on the whole, for I had plenty wherewith to occupy my attention and my sisters for companions, little Totty, the youngest, never being so happy as when with me.