CHAPTER VIII.
ALONE IN THE WOOD.
There was a dizzy moment for Kitty when she seemed to hang between heaven and earth, and everything swam in circles before her dazed eyes. Then, with a supreme effort, she managed to clutch the bough, to which she clung with a firmer grasp, and slowly but surely to drag herself up into safety on its broad, firm stem.
"I'm coming, Nora. I'll be down in a minute," she shouted.
She crept along the bough, and soon, much scratched and covered with moss and leaves, her dress torn, her face hotly flushed, she reached the ground and rushed to Nora's side.
Poor Nora had fallen from a height of nearly twenty feet. Her fall had been slightly broken by the rotten bough which had come to the ground with her; but, notwithstanding this fact, she lay now on her back, faint and sick and moaning, as if she were in great pain.
Poor Kitty's repentance was intense.
"Oh, Nora, Nora!" she sobbed, bending over her, "are you hurt badly? Can't you get up? Oh, dear! oh, dear! you do look ill, and it's my fault of course. Why did I have a secret? and why did I tease you? Oh, Nora!" she added, terror in her tone as she noticed the increasing whiteness of Nora's pretty face, "are you in dreadful, shocking pain?"
"I feel sick," said Nora, "and—and faint. Can't you fetch some water. Oh, everything seems miles away. What shall I do?"