But the young fellow still hesitated. To take a strange, fair girl in his arms—such a thing he had never done—but he must do so now. He put his strong arms under her and lifted her as he would a child, and carried her into the next room, where he laid his burden on the sofa. The cool air had its effect, and she opened her eyes and smiled into the faces that were bent over her.
"Lie still, my dear," said Mrs. Ames. "You have been hurt more than you think."
"Did I faint?—yes, I must have—but I'm not hurt." She tried to rise, but with a moan she sank back on the pillow which Nina had brought.
"I'll go for the doctor," said Rupert, and off he went. When he and Doctor Chase came in an hour later, the girl was again sitting at the table with Mrs. Ames and Nina.
"I met with a slight accident down the road," she explained to the doctor. "I wasn't quite killed, you see, but these good people are trying to finish me with their kindness;" and she laughed merrily.
Her name was Miss Wilton. She was a school teacher, and was on her way to answer an advertisement of the Dry Bench trustees for a teacher. She hoped the doctor would pronounce her all right that she might continue her journey, as she understood it was not far.
"You have had a severe shaking up, Miss Wilton, but I don't think you need to postpone your journey more than a few hours," was the doctor's decision.
About noon, Rupert drove Miss Wilton's horse around to the front door and delivered it to her. With a profusion of thanks, she drove away in the direction of the chairman of the school trustees. Neither Nina nor her mother had said anything about Rupert's being on the board. Mrs. Ames had once seemed to broach the subject, but a look from Rupert was enough to check her. When the school teacher disappeared down the road, Rupert again shouldered his shovel, and this time the ugly hole where the road crossed the canal was mended. That done, he returned home, hitched a horse to his cart and drove to town.