CHAPTER IX.
THE HOSPITAL.
When Berty came to herself, she was lying on a bed, and the strange gentleman was bending over her, with a very anxious expression upon his pleasant face. Her first impulse was to try running away once more, but she found she had not strength enough to lift her head from the pillow. Then she became conscious that there was a bandage round her temples, and that a kind-looking lady was beside the gentleman, helping him to unfasten her dress. “They’ll find the pocket-book now,” thought she, and she tried to put up her hands to shield it; but the right one was strangely powerless, and the left one the gentleman held in his, while he felt her pulse. When the lady came to the pocket-book, which she presently did to Berty’s great distress, she took it in her hand, and squeezing it a little, handed it to the gentleman, saying, “I don’t know what it is.” It was no wonder she did not know, for Berty had wrapped it carefully in several papers, and tied it with a piece of string before she left home that morning.
“Never mind,” said the gentleman, passing it to Tim, who, Berty now saw for the first time, was standing at the foot of the bed. “Never mind, Madam; only make haste, and cut the sleeve from the right arm there. I suspect it is broken.”
Berty thought it very strange that the gentleman should not know his own pocket-book when he held it in his hand; but she was so frightened at the thought of her broken arm that she could scarcely feel relieved at her escape. The sleeve was soon cut away, and the gentleman lifted the wounded arm gently, and felt it tenderly here and there. The pain caused by the motion was so great that Berty could scarcely help crying out with it; but she made a great effort, and kept still.
“Yes,” said Dr. John at length,—of course my young readers have guessed that Dr. John and the strange gentleman were one and the same person,—“yes, it is as I feared: the shoulder is dislocated, and the forearm broken.”
Tim gave a pitying exclamation, and Berty a little frightened cry.
“Don’t be alarmed, my dear,” said the Doctor. “It is not so very bad. If you are only brave and patient, we can put it all right again directly; and after that we shall take such good care of you that you will be quite sorry when you are well enough to go away. All our little people are sorry when their time comes to leave us; are they not, Mrs. Gantz?”