“Now about someone to sit with you to-night. The ladies, it seems, all have engagements, and I’ve urged them to keep them. Thought the normal might give them a balance.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right,” I answered. “Jane can look in once in a while.” But without meaning to I looked at the window. The doctor frowned, and I was ashamed. I told him about how I had been chased and that that had upset me a little. And that I was usually brave. He said he thought I was splendid, and that he wasn’t angry with me.
“Sam Kempwood who helped you out of that scrape?” he questioned.
I nodded.
“Bully chap,” he said. “I know him.”
I said I thought he was one of the nicest men that I’d ever met. That you could tell it.
“Suppose he comes up and plays nurse?” the doctor suggested.
I smiled. “That would be lovely,” I admitted after a long breath, for even then I really loved Mr. Kempwood, “but I am sure it will bore him. You see, I don’t know how to entertain people the way my cousin Evelyn does.”
But the doctor said that I was to be entertained, and that he’d stop at Mr. Kempwood’s on the way down. And then he wrapped me up in a pink comforter and carried me out to the living-room, where he put me on a wide lounge which stands before the fire.
“Now Hannah, or Molly, or whatever your name is,” he said to Jane, “you stay with this child until I come back.” And Jane did, but she wasn’t much help. She was so awfully frightened and kept jumping and looking around. . . . In just a few moments the bell rang, and I heard the men in the hall. . . . “Just a little while will change the trend and help her,” the doctor said. “The rest have cleared out and good riddance! Weren’t any good. . . . Awfully decent of you, Kempwood.”