By-and-by, when she was tired of waiting, and all seemed very quiet, she looked in. Arthur had fainted. Sir Geoffry was bathing his forehead with eau-de-Cologne; Picker had run for something in a tumbler and wine stood on the table.
“Was it the pain?—did it hurt him very badly?” asked Mary, supposing that the arm had been bathed and perhaps dressed.
“I have not done anything to it; I preferred to leave it for Duffham,” said Sir Geoffry—and at the same moment she caught sight of the velvet sleeve laid open, and something lying on it that looked like a mass of linen. Mary turned even whiter than the child.
“Do not be alarmed,” said Sir Geoffry. “Your little nephew is only faint from the loss of blood. Drink this,” he added, bringing her a glass of wine.
But she would not take it. As Sir Geoffry was putting it on the table, Arthur began to revive. Young children are elastic—ill one minute, well the next; and he began to talk again.
“Aunt Mary, are you there?”
She moved to the sofa, and took his uninjured hand.
“We must not tell grandmamma, Aunt Mary. It would frighten her.”
“Bless his dear little thoughtful heart!” interjected Hester Picker. “Here comes something.”