The play stopped immediately, and Dorothy was carried to a bench.
“Is it sprained, do you think?” inquired Tavia anxiously.
“Oh, I think—it’s broken,” replied the suffering girl, whose face showed the agony she was enduring.
“We must carry her in,” cried Rose-Mary, and then as many girls as could join hands in emergency cot fashion, supported Dorothy in a practical first-aid-to-the-injured demonstration even carrying her up the broad stone steps of the school building without allowing the slightest jar to affect the painful ankle.
But the ankle was not sprained, neither was it broken, but a very severe strain kept Dorothy off her feet for several days. She could not even go to class, but had a visiting “tutor” in the person of Miss Bylow, who came every morning and afternoon to hear Dorothy’s work, so that Tavia declared when she would meet with an accident it would not be of that nature—“no fun in being laid up with a sore ankle and hard work complications,” was that girl’s verdict.
But the week wore by finally, and the ankle mended, so that only some very sudden or severe test of the muscle brought back pain.
Miette’s troubles assumed a more serious aspect in Dorothy’s opinion, as during the week when she was unable to be about among the girls, hints had reached her of trifling but at the same annoying occurrences to which the little French girl had been subjected.
So the very first day that Dorothy could leave her room, and attend class, she determined to go straight to Miette, and use all her persuasive powers to make the girl understand how much better it might be for her to have a real confidant at Glenwood.
The day’s lessons were over, and the time was free for recreation. Dorothy went at once to Miette’s room. She found the girl dark-browed and almost forbidding, her foreign nature showing its power to control, but not to hide, worry.
Miette was mending a dress but dropped her work as Dorothy entered.