"A queer old chap"—was the usual summary of his character in the parish; and the charitable added, "no call to blame him; a little bit touched in the upper storey."
To the vast relief of her brother, and the delight of her kind hostess, Christie Fox that very night contrived to come to herself, almost as suddenly as she had left it.
"What is all this about?" she asked, opening her clear eyes strongly. "Why, Jemmy, you have got no hat on! And where is mine? Oh dear! oh dear! Thirty shillings, without the trimming."
"There it is, dear, as large as life, and not a speck upon it. Now drink this cup of tea; and then I'll finish what I was saying."
"No, you always talk so fast, and you never let me say a word. I might just as well have no tongue at all."
The young lady spoke in such fine ignorance of the self she had come back to, that there could be no doubt of her being all there. And presently the "cup of tea" had such a tranquillising power that she fell into a sweet deep sleep, and did not awake until the sun was as high as he meant to go at that time of the year. At first she had a slow dull headache, and felt stiff all over. But Mrs. Gilham appearing with a napkin'd tray, thin toast and butter, a couple of pullet's eggs just laid, and one or two other brisk challenges at the hands of her youngest daughter, nature arose with an open mouth to have the last word about it, and Christie made a famous breakfast.
Very soon Dr. Gronow looked in again, and smiled in his dry way at her, for he was not a man of many words. She gave her round wrist to be felt, and the slim pink tongue to be glanced at, and the bright little head to be certified cool and sound under the curls; and passing this examination with high honours, she thought him a "very nice old man;" though his face was not at first sight perhaps of the sweet and benevolent order.
Then the old doctor took the young doctor aside—for Jemmy had not been out of hail all night—and said, "She will do. I congratulate you. No serious lesion, no feverish symptoms—just a bump on her head from a mother-of-pearl button. But she has been severely shaken. I would not move her for a day or two."
"May she get up?" asked Jemmy in that spirit of pure submission, with which a doctor resigns his own family to the care of another, who knows perhaps less than he himself does. But the plan is wise for the most part, inasmuch as love is apt to cloud the clearest eyes.
"To be sure she may. It will do her good. But not to walk about yet. These people are the kindest of the kind. You may safely leave all that to the ladies. Meanwhile you are better out of the way. Come down for an hour or two, and share my early dinner. You want looking to yourself. You have not had a bit for some twenty-four hours."