Her dainty dress was burned, and her curls were singed in front, but that was the extent of the damage.
Mrs. Newby caught her child to her arms in a gush of unspeakable thankfulness, while Dolly poured out her remorse and sorrow with a flood of tears.
Mr. Newby stood by, looking more shaken than Dolly had ever believed possible for so self-contained a man. He questioned Dolly and Beth closely, and when the full particulars of the accident had been told, he put his arms around Beth and called her his “brave, sensible daughter;” but his voice trembled and Dolly was sure there were tears in his eyes.
Peter waited on the little folks for the remainder of the meal, while Mrs. Newby carried Nell off to change her dress and to look after Beth’s hands. They were badly burned; not seriously, however, and while Beth might suffer considerably from them for two or three weeks, there would probably be no permanent scars. Mr. Newby had insisted on summoning a physician at once, despite Beth’s protests. Her hands had been dressed, and she had been told that she must consent to be waited upon for the next week or two like a baby.
“But I must go back to college tomorrow, Doctor, that is a positive fact.”
Dr. Thornton looked rather grave. “If you are careless, Miss Newby, your hands will be permanently scarred. They should be dressed every day, and you should use them as little as possible.”
“I do not think that I can consent to your going, Beth,” said her father gravely.
“And I cannot consent to staying at home, Father,” Beth returned decidedly. “Dr. Randolph, our college physician, will dress my hands for me every day. I promise to be very careful.”
“If you are willing to have her go,” Dolly said anxiously, “I will do everything that I can for her during the next two or three weeks. I feel as if this were all my fault, anyway, for I had promised Mrs. Newby that I would look after the birthday cake. Then I was attending to something else when it came in and I forgot all about it. If it had not been for Beth–” She stopped shudderingly.
“I know that you would do all you possibly could for Beth,” Mr. Newby said slowly. “Still I do not feel that she ought to go.”