"It's all right, dear, it's all right," she repeated monotonously, with set lips, "the doctor's coming. It's all right."
Caroline wriggled between two policemen, and made for a striped blue and white skirt that lay motionless on the ground. Across the white apron ran a broad, dirty smudge.
Caroline ran forward.
"Delia! Delia!" she gulped. "Is she—is she dead?"
A little man with eye-glasses looked up from where he knelt beside the blue and white skirt.
"I don't believe so, my dear," he said briskly. "Is this your nurse? See, she's opening her eyes now—speak to her gently."
As he shifted a leather-covered flask from one hand to the other, Caroline saw a strange face with drawn, purplish lids where she had always known two merry gray eyes, and tight thin lips she could not believe Delia's. A nervous fear seized her, and she turned to run away; but she remembered suddenly how kind Delia had been to her; how that very morning—it seemed so long ago, now—Delia had helped her with her stubby braids of hair, and chided Miss Honey for laughing at her ignorance of the customs of the park. She gathered her courage together and crouched down by the silent, terrifying figure.
"Hel—hello, Delia!" she began jerkily, wincing as the eyes opened and stared stupidly at the ring of anxious faces. "How do you feel, Delia?"
"Lean down," said the little man softly, "she wants to say something."
Caroline leaned lower.