“Oh!” gasped Kitty.  “O Dan, how did it happen?  What were you doing?  Reading in bed?  You might have been burnt to death.”

“I should have been—­we all should have been, and the house burnt down, if it hadn’t been for Anna,” groaned Dan.  “It’ll teach me never to read in bed again.  I thought I was quite wide awake too.  But look at Anna; do try and do something for her.  She has burnt her hands horribly, and I didn’t know what to put on them.  What can I do?  Kitty, do do something; she is in frightful pain, and she was so plucky.”

Even in her great pain Anna looked up gratified by this praise.  Kitty gently lifted her hands and looked at them, then laid them down again with a little shocked cry, for the whole of the palms and the fingers were covered with burns.

“Oh you poor, poor thing!” she cried.—­“Dan, do creep down to the surgery, and bring up the bottle of carron oil.  You will find it on the floor by the window.  Father always keeps it there.—­O Anna,” putting her arms round her cousin’s quivering shoulders, “how you must be suffering!  I am so sorry.  I wish I could bear it for you.”

Anna was almost beyond speaking, but she laid her head back against Kitty’s arm with a sigh of relief.  “O Kitty, I am so glad to have done something for you—­that’s all I think of.  I don’t mind the pain.  You have done so much for me, and I—­I wanted to make it up to you somehow.”

“Don’t you ever think of that again,” said Kitty solemnly.  “You have saved Dan’s life, perhaps all our lives, and that wipes out everything.  But oh! poor Dan, won’t he be in a scrape to-morrow when this is all found out!”

“But it won’t be found out,” said Anna.  “We can easily get rid of the paper, and the mark on the curtain won’t show unless one looks for it; and, you see, it won’t be taken down till the winter is over, and then—­”

“But your hands,” cried Kitty.  “How can we explain about your burns?”

“Oh—­h,” said Anna slowly, as she tried to think of some plan, “I will just say it is an accident—­I needn’t explain.”

“But I shall,” said Kitty firmly.  “I am not going to have any deceitfulness.  We will all stand together, but you aren’t going to suffer for Dan.  Dan wouldn’t stand it, and I should be ashamed of him if he did.”

Anna did not answer, and Kitty thought she had won.  Dan returned with the oil, and from his own drawer produced a generous supply of torn handkerchiefs.

“How did you find out about the fire?” questioned Kitty, as she bound up the poor hands as skilfully as she knew how.  Her “skill” would have made a surgeon or a nurse smile, but the result was soothing and comforting.