"Miss Smith! A broken leg! For the land's sake, Tim, get up quick!" the widow gasped.

Closing the window and putting on a skirt, she descended to the kitchen, lighted an oil lamp, and, throwing open the door, looked at the group outside. She was prepared for Sam and Miss Smith, and did not mind her deshabille for them. But at the sight of two gentlemen, and one of them young Mr. Crompton, she came near dropping her lamp.

"Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Crompton! And I half-dressed!

Wait till I get on some clothes, and my hair, and my teeth. I am a sight to behold."

"Never mind your teeth, nor your hair, nor your best gown," Sam said, pushing open the door Mrs. Biggs had partially closed, and entering the house, followed by Howard and Jack, with Eloise still clinging to Jack's neck, and half fainting with the pain in her ankle which had increased from hanging down so long.

Tim had come by this time, fastening his suspenders as he came, and caring less for his appearance than his mother. She had disappeared, but soon returned with teeth, and hair, and clothes in place, and herself ready for the emergency. Following Tim's directions they had put Eloise on a couch, where she lay with her eyes closed, and so still that they thought she had fainted.

"Bring the camphire, Timothy, and the hartshorn, and start up the oil stove for hot water, and move lively." Mrs. Biggs said to her son. "I don't believe she's broke her laig, poor thing. How white she is," she continued, laying her hand on Eloise's forehead.

This brought the tears in a copious shower, as Eloise sat up and said, "It is my ankle. I think it is sprained. If you could get off my boot."

She tried to lift it, but let it drop with a cry of pain.

"I'll bet it's sprained, and a sprain is wus than a break. I had one twenty years ago come Christmas, and went with my knee on a chair two weeks, and on crutches three," was Mrs. Biggs's consoling remark, as she held the lamp close to the fast-swelling foot, to which the wet boot clung with great tenacity.

"Oh, I can't bear it," Eloise said, as the process of removing her boot commenced; then, closing her eyes, she lay back upon the cushions, while one after another, Mrs. Biggs, Howard, Jack, and Tim worked at the refractory boot.

It was such a small foot, Jack thought, pitying the young girl, as he saw spasms of pain upon her face, where drops of sweat were standing. He wiped these away with Mrs. Biggs's ap.r.o.n, lying in a chair, and smoothed her hair, and took one of her clenched hands in his, and held it while the three tried to remove the boot.

"'Tain't no use,--it's got to be cut off,--mine did. Tim, bring me the butcher knife,--the sharpest one," Mrs. Biggs said.

Eloise shuddered, and thought of the only other pair of boots she had,--her best ones, which were to have lasted a year. But there was no alternative. The boot must be cut off, and Jack continued to hold her hands while, piece by piece, the wet leather dropped upon the floor.

"Now for the stockin'; that'll come easier," Mrs. Biggs said.

"Must you take that off now?" Eloise asked, her maidenly modesty prevailing over every other feeling.

Howard and Jack understood, and went to the window, while the stocking followed the fate of the boot; and when they came back to the couch Eloise's foot was in a basin of hot water, and Mrs. Biggs was gently manipulating it, and declaring it the worst sprain she ever knew, except her own, which, after twenty years troubled her at times, and told her when a storm was coming.

"Ought she to have a doctor?" Jack asked, and Mrs. Biggs replied, "A doctor? What for, except to run up a bill. I know what to do. She'll have to keep quiet a spell; wormwood and vinegar and hot water will do the rest. Tim, go up garret and get a handful of wormwood. It's the bundle of 'arbs to your right. There's catnip, and h.o.r.ehound, and spearmint, and sage, and wormwood. Be lively, and put it to steep in some vinegar, and bring me that old sheet in the under bureau drawer for bandages."

She seemed to know what she was about. Eloise was in good hands, and the two water-soaked young men were about to leave when she said, "I guess one of you will have to carry her to her chamber. I can't trust Tim, he's such a blunderhead."

"No, no! Oh, no! I can walk somehow," Eloise said, starting to her feet, and sinking back as quickly.

"Let me. I'll carry her!" Howard and Jack both exclaimed; but something in Eloise's eyes gave the preference to Jack, who lifted her as easily as if she had been a child, and carried her up the narrow stairs to the room which at intervals had been occupied by one teacher after another for nearly twenty years, for it was understood that Mrs. Biggs was to board the teachers who had no home of their own in the district.

But never had so forlorn or wretched an one been there as poor Eloise.

The world certainly looked very dreary to her, and her lip quivered as she said good-by to Jack, and tried to smile in reply to his a.s.surance that she would be better soon, and that he would call and see her on the morrow. Then he was gone, and Eloise heard the footsteps and voices of the three men as they left the house and hurried away. She was soon in bed, and as comfortable as Mrs. Biggs could make her. That good lady was a born nurse as well as a gossip, and as she arranged Eloise for what there was left of the night, her tongue ran incessantly, first on her own sprain,--every harrowing detail of which was gone over,--then on the two young men, Howard Crompton and t'other one, who was he? She knew Mr.

Howard,--everybody did. He was Col. Crompton's nephew, and he ruled the roost at the Crompton House, folks said, and would most likely be the Colonel's heir, with Miss Amy, as folks called her now. Had Miss Smith ever heard of her?

Eloise never had, and the pain in her ankle was so sharp that she gave little heed to what Mrs. Biggs was saying. She did not know either of the young men, she said. Both had been kind to her, and one, she thought, was a stranger, who came in the train with her.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Biggs answered briskly. "I remember now. Cindy,--that's Miss Stiles, the housekeeper at Crompton Place,--told me Mr. Howard was to have company,--another high buck, I s'pose, though Howard don't do nothin' worse than drive horses pretty fast, and smoke most all the time. Drinks wine at dinner, they say, which I disbelieve in on account of Tim, who never took nothin' stronger'n sweet cider through a straw."

At last, to Eloise's relief, Mrs. Biggs said good-night, and left her with the remark, "I don't s'pose you'll sleep a wink. I didn't the first night after my sprain, nor for a good many nights neither."

CHAPTER V

AMY

"If this isn't a lark I never had one," Howard said to Jack, when they were safely housed and had changed their clothes, not a thread of which was dry.

Jack, whose luggage had not come, and who was obliged to borrow from Howard's wardrobe, looked like an overgrown boy in garments too small for him. But he did not mind it, and with Howard discussed the events of the evening, as they sat over the fire the latter had lighted in his room. Naturally Eloise was the subject of their conversation.

"I wrote you I had a presentiment that she was to come into my life in some way, but I had no idea it was to be this way," Howard said, as he puffed at his cigar and talked of their adventure and Eloise.

That she was very handsome and had pretty little feet went without saying, and that both were sorry for her was equally, of course. Jack was the more so, as his was the more unselfish and sympathetic nature.

"By Jove, didn't she bear the cutting of that boot like a hero, and how is she ever to get to school with that ankle?" he said; "and I think she ought to have a doctor to see if any bones are broken. Suppose you get one in the morning, and tell him not to send his bill to her but to me."

Howard looked up quickly, and Jack went on, "I wrote you that Mrs.

Brown said she was poor, and I should know it by her boots."

"Her boots!" Howard repeated, and Jack continued, "Yes, wet as they were I noticed they were half-worn, and had been blacked many times. She can't afford to pay many doctor's bills, and I ask you again, how is she to get to school?"

Howard did not know, unless they made another chair and carried her.

"I wouldn't mind it much for the sake of her arm around my neck. I can feel it yet. Can't you?" he said.

Jack could feel it and the little wet hand which once or twice had touched his face, but something in his nature forbade his talking about it. It might have been fun for them, but he knew it was like death to the girl, and that she had shrank from it all, and only submitted because she could not help it. He was very sorry for her, and thought of her the last moment before he fell asleep, and the first moment he awoke with Howard in the room telling him it was after breakfast time, and his uncle, who did not like to be kept waiting, was already in a temper and blowing like a northeaster.

The Colonel, who was suffering from an attack of rheumatic gout, was more irritable than usual. He had not liked having his horses and carriage go out in the rain, and had sat up waiting for the return of his nephew, and when Sam came in, telling what had happened to the carriage and horses, and that he must go back with a lantern to the park gates and see if the new school mistress was alive, he went into a terrible pa.s.sion, swearing at the weather, and the late train, and the school mistress who he seemed to think was the cause of the accident.

"What business had she in the carriage? Why did she come in such a storm? Why didn't she take the 'bus, and if the 'bus wasn't there, why didn't she--?" He didn't know what, and it took all the tact of Peter, who was still in the family and old like his master, to quiet him.

Then next morning his gout was so bad that he was wheeled into the dining-room, where he was fast growing angry at the delay of breakfast, and beginning to swear again when Peter, who knew how to manage him, went for Amy. Nothing quieted the Colonel like a sight of Amy, with her sweet face and gentle ways.

"Please come. It's beginning to sizzle," Peter frequently said to her when a storm was brewing, and Amy always went, and was like oil on the troubled waters.

"What is it?" she now asked, and the Colonel replied, "What is it! I should say, what is it! There's the very old Harry to pay. Brutus has a big hole in his breast, the carriage is smashed, silk cushions all stained with a girl's blue gown, and that girl the school-teacher I didn't want; and she's broken her leg or something when they tipped over, and Howard and his friend carried her to Widow Biggs's, and the Lord knows what didn't happen!"

Amy had a way of seeming to listen very attentively when the Colonel talked to her, and always smiled her appreciation and approbation of what he said. Just how much she really heard or understood was doubtful.

Her mind seemed to run in two channels,--one the present, the other the past,--and both were blurred and indistinct,--especially the past. She understood about the young girl, however, and at once expressed her sympathy, and said, "We must do something for her."

To do something for any one in sickness or trouble was her first thought, and many a home had been made glad because of her since she came to Crompton.

"Certainly; do what you like, only don't bring her here," the Colonel replied, his voice and manner softening, as they always did with Amy.

She was a very handsome woman and looked younger than her years. The storm which had swept over her had not impaired her physical beauty, but had touched her mentally in a way very puzzling to those about her, and rather annoying to the Colonel, who was trying to make amends for the harshness which had driven her from his home. Sometimes her quiet, pa.s.sive manner irritated him, and he felt that he would gladly welcome the old imperiousness with which she had defied him. But it was gone.

Something had broken her on the wheel, killing her spirit completely, or smothering it and leaving her a timid, silent woman, who sat for hours with a sad, far-off expression, as if looking into the past and trying to gather up the tangled threads which had in a measure obscured her intellect.