Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about something that had not happened at all.  She remembered afterward that the doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood flowing until she answered “Yes, sir,” to his question, “Does your head hurt you now?” She remembered all their faces—­how Linnet cried and sobbed, how Hollis whispered, “I’ll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to go to China for it,” and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and thanked God for giving her back to them all out of her great danger.  That night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered saying to her: 

“If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing that I had died.  It would have been like going to Heaven without dying.”

V.

TWO PROMISES.

“He who promiseth runs in debt.”

Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with yellow cord.  It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless some pitchers a hundred years ago were flat.

Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was here and not very much hurt, and she was loved and petted to her heart’s content.  And that is saying a great deal for Marjorie, for her heart’s content was a very large content.  Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with anxious eyes and to ask, “How do you feel now?” Her mother wandered in and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the mowing field.  Several village people having heard of the accident through Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better.  But the safe feeling was the most blessed of all.  Towards noon she lay still with her white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wishing they would all come to-day when she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody.

“I won’t stay five minutes, father.”

The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor door and the boisterous “vacation” voice was greeting her with,

“Well, Miss Mousie!  How about the tumble down now?”

But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in his hand.

“Oh, Hollis, I’m so glad!” she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow.