Meg, who had almost severed her connection with Aldith, devoted herself to her sister, and waited on her hand and foot; she made her all kinds of little presents—­a boot-bag, with compartments; a brush-and-comb bag, with the monogram “J.W.,” worked in pink silk; a little work-basket, with needle-book, pin-cushion, and all complete.  Judy feared she should be compelled to betake herself to tidy habits on her recovery.

Her pleasure in the little gifts started a spirit of competition among the others.

For one whole day Pip was invisible, but in the evening he turned up, and walked to the bedside with a proud face.  He had constructed a little set of drawers, three of which actually opened under skilful coaxing.

“It’s not for doll-clothes,” he said, after she had exhausted all the expressions of gratitude in common use, “because I know you hate them, but you can keep all your little things in them, you see—­hair strings, and thimbles, and things.”

There was a sound of dragging outside the door and presently Bunty came in backward, lugging a great, strange thing.

It seemed to be five or six heavy pieces of board nailed together haphazard.

“It’s a chair,” he explained, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.  “Oh!  I’m going to put some canvas across it, of course, so you won’t fall through; but I thought I’d show it you first.”

Judy’s eyes smiled, but she thanked him warmly.  “I wasn’t goin’ to make any stupid thing, like Pip did,” the small youth continued, looking deprecatingly at the little drawers.  “This is really useful, you see; when you get up you can sit on it, Judy, by the fire and read or sew or something.  You like it better ’n Pip’s, don’t you?”

Judy temporized skilfully, and averted offence to either by asking them to put the presents with all the others near the head of the bed.

“What a lot of things you’ll have to take back to school, Ju,” Nell said, as she added her contribution in the shape of a pair of crochet cuffs and a doll’s wool jacket.

But Judy only flashed her a reproachful glance, and turned her face to the wall for the rest of the evening.

That was what had been hanging over her so heavily all this long fortnight in bed—­the thought of school in the future.

“What’s going to happen to me when I get better, Esther?” she asked next morning, in a depressed way, when her stepmother came to see her.  “Is he saving up a lot of beatings for me?  And shall I have to go back the first week?”

Esther reassured her.

“You won’t go back this quarter at all, very likely not next either, Judy dear.  He says you shall go away with some of the others for a change till you get strong; and, between you and me, I think its very unlikely you, will go back ever again.”

With this dread removed, Judy mended more rapidly, surprising even the doctor with her powers of recuperation.