“Brave girl! It is the best thing that could possibly have been done!” exclaimed the doctor. “I trust and believe that you have saved her life.”
Max came panting up. “We’ve killed it!” he said. “Ajax came to my assistance with a pitchfork! Oh, Rosie, are you badly hurt?”
Rosie only sobbed in reply. She was thoroughly frightened. She didn’t want to die, and was very much afraid the bite might prove fatal.
“I think you may stop now, Lulu,” the doctor said, and the little girl rose from her knees looking very white and faint.
Her father caught her in his arms and carried her away to a rustic seat a few yards distant, while the doctor took charge of Rosie.
“Papa, I feel very—very—sick,” faltered Lulu, laying her head on his shoulder. “Do you think—it’ll kill me?”
“No, my dear, brave darling,” he answered, in moved tones; “the poison does no harm taken into the stomach, although it is deadly when it gets into the blood. I think you are sick from the mere thought of having swallowed it. But how did you come to know so well just what to do?”
“I read it once, papa, and I thought, now I’ll remember that, because Gracie or Max might get bitten, and though I’d hate dreadfully, dreadfully to do it, I’d be glad to save their lives.”
“My own darling! my dear, brave, self-forgetful little daughter!” he said, holding her close to his heart, “you have made your father a proud and happy man to-day! proud and glad that his dear little girl has shown such presence of mind and willingness to sacrifice herself for another!”
She looked up with a flash of exceeding joy in her eyes, then dropping her head on his shoulder again, burst into a perfect storm of tears and sobs.