“Hurry up, now. I’ll go in and make our excuses to Aunt Isabel.”
But when Bella reached a turn in the shrubbery, she found a little heap on the ground, a group of people bending over it, conspicuous in the front being the lady who had asked her to introduce Grace, now using a lorgnette most vigorously.
What happened next, Bella never could tell. She only knew that the gardeners lifted Grace, and carried her into one of the back doors, giving her up to the care of the housekeeper, whom they called Mrs. Higby, and that some of the ladies and gentlemen followed, proposing various remedies, the lady with the lorgnette pressing after most assiduously.
“She tripped on her gown and fell just as we were coming along,” said this lady sweetly. “She seems somehow unused to a long gown. Let me bathe her face.”
“Here comes Miss Phronsie,” said Mrs. Higby. “Now that blessed dear has heard of the accident. Make way for Miss Phronsie.”
Phronsie came softly up in her beautiful white gown. She laid down her bunch of lilies-of-the-valley on the table, and bent over the young girl, laying a quiet hand on the cold one. “Poor thing,” she said, and she dropped a kiss on the white cheek.
To everybody’s surprise, two tears gushed out and rolled down the white face. “Leave her to me,” said Phronsie gently. “Now, if everybody will please go out, Mrs. Higby and I will take care of her.”
“You would better let me stay,” the lorgnette lady had the temerity to say.
“We do not need you,” said Phronsie, coolly regarding her. “Will you please go out with the others?”
When Charley Swan came stalking in by the back door, it was to see Miss Phronsie Pepper with her arms around Grace as they sat on the lounge in the housekeeper’s dining-room, and Bella Drysdale crouched on the floor, with her hands clasped in Phronsie’s lap.