From the doorway a horrified voice cried: "Good heavens! Nixie!" and a young man dashed down the steps into the ruins.
"Are you hurt?" he cried anxiously, as he fished Barbara out of the wreck. Nixie had already slunk out from under, and was wagging his tail deprecatingly, with glances of mingled shame and amazement at his master.
"I think I am," said Barbara, raising her head and trying to speak cheerfully.
The young man replaced her hat—it had fallen over her eyes—and revealed a woebegone little face. Earth plastered the saucy chin, one cheek was cut, and blood trickled from the bridge of the poor little tilted nose, making a paste wherever the loam from the flower-pots had spattered, and this was nearly everywhere. Barbara's hair was coming down, her hat was shapeless, and her eyes tearful from the smarting wounds.
"By Jove, you're a wreck! It's a shame!" cried the young man. "I'll whip Nixie."
"You'll do nothing of the sort!" said Barbara, with spirit. "How did he know I was coming up—coming up like a flower—at that moment? You might as well whip me. Nobody is to blame, and I'll be all right when I've washed and sewed and plastered, and done a few other things."
"Well, you're plucky," said the youth, admiringly. "I'm a doctor in embryo—full fledged next June. I'll take you in and fix you up. Do you—you don't live here?"
"We shall to-morrow; I'm a new boarder," said Barbara. "Oh, I hope my plants aren't broken! Can they be re-potted? We've become poor, and I ought not to have bought them. Why on earth doesn't that boy get up? Is he killed?" she demanded, realizing that her companion in misery was still lying, with his head in the basket, under a debris of flower-pots.
"It's why in earth, rather," laughed the medical student. "Here, you boy, are you alive? You're buried all right! Get up."
The listless boy gathered himself slowly together. "Well, I'll be darned!" he said.