“How ridiculous!” said Gerald, impatiently.  “Miss Delano, will you have a chair?”

“Thank you, no, dear.  I’ll just sit here on the bed,” said the little old dame, humbly, anxious not to make any one any trouble.  “O Phebe, my dear!”

Phebe smiled at her affectionately, and Mrs. Hardcastle, who was on the point of leaving when Mrs. Upjohn came in, sat down again to ask that lady about the character of a servant whom she had just engaged.

“I thought I should have died when I heard it,” said Miss Delano, patting Phebe’s cheek.  “Poor dear, poor dear!  And they say you won’t ever be able to walk again!”

“Who says that?” asked Phebe, laughing.  “I shall be a terrible disappointment to them.”

“’Tain’t her legs at all; it’s her shoulders,” said Olly, as he emerged from his corner, chewing Europe into a pasteboard bull.  “What have you got in that paper?”

“Oh, the blessed child, and I was forgetting it.  My dear, it’s just a little sponge-cake I made free to bring you, it turned out so light.  Don’t you think you could eat a bit perhaps?”

“My, but it looks good!” said Olly, approaching a hungry finger and poking at it softly.  “I’ll get a knife.”

“I hope you don’t allow any such trash as that about, Miss Vernor,” said Mrs. Upjohn, sharply, in the middle of her discussion of Jane’s demerits.  “Phebe ought to be exceedingly careful what she eats for a great while to come.  It’s doubtful, indeed, whether her stomach ever recovers its tone after such a shock.  I knew one woman who died just of the shock alone some two months after precisely such an accident as this, when everybody thought she had got well, and Phebe must be very careful.  Her appetite is not to be tempted, but guided.”

“Well, ladies, I must be going,” announced Mrs. Hardcastle, rising.  “You really think I am safe, then, in engaging her, Mrs. Upjohn?” But just then Mrs. Dexter came in with two of her daughters, and Mrs. Hardcastle sat down again.

“There was no one downstairs, and as the doctor says Phebe is so much better, we thought we might just come up,” said the new comer.  “Why, Phebe, you are as blooming as a rose, and I understood you had lost all your pretty hair.  I’ve brought you some grapes, my dear, and a jar of extra fine brandy peaches, and little Maggie insisted on sending some molasses candy she had just made.”

“Well, well, I did look for more sense from you,” said Mrs. Upjohn, tapping Mrs. Dexter rather smartly on the shoulder.  “Where’ll you sit?  Oh, on the bed.  Yes, Phebe’s had a narrow escape, and one she’ll likely bear the marks of to her dying day.  Let it be a warning to you, young ladies, to be prepared.  There’s no knowing how soon some one of you may not be carried off in the same way,—­just as you are dressed for a dance, maybe.”  Her tone implied that death could not overtake them at a more sinful moment.

“Hullo, up there!  I say!” shouted a voice in the hall below, “how’s Phebe?”