g to its end, when the awful crash came.

There were shouts and shrieks, tears and groans, and here and there
helpless fainting. Ushers rushed from place to place, the police
appeared suddenly. The Japanese, silent, swift, self-controlled, were
moving their paraphernalia that the curtain might be lowered, were
stretching a small screen about the inert, fallen figure, were bringing
a rug to lift her on, and their faces were like so many old, _old_ ivory
masks.

Tom McDermott, in his blue coat, stood by the silent little figure
waiting for the rug and for the coming of the doctor, and groaned, "On
her face, too--and she a girl child!"

Tom had seen three battle-fields and many worse sights, but none of them
had misted his eyes as did this little glittering, broken heap, and he
turned his face away and muttered, "If she'd only keep quiet!" for truly
it was dreadful to see the long shudders that ran over the silent,
huddled thing, to see certain red threads broadening into very rivulets.
At last the ambulance, then the all-concealing curtain, the reviving
music, a song, a pretty dance, and _presto_, all was forgotten!

When Omassa opened her eyes, her brain took up work just where it had
left off; therefore she was astonished to find the sun shining, for had
she not seen the sun go out quite black in the sky? Yet here it was so
bright, and she was--was, where? The room was small and clean, oh,
clean! like a Japanese house, and almost as empty. Could it be? But no,
this bed was American, and then why was she so heavy? What great weight
was upon her? She could not move one little bit, and oh, my! _what_ was
it she could faintly see beyond and below her own nose--was it shadow?
Surely she could not see her own _lip_? She smiled at that, and the
movement wrung a cry of agony from her--when, like magic, a face was
bending over her, so kind and gentle, and then a joyous voice cried to
some one in the next room, "This little girl, not content with being
alive, sir, has her senses--is she not a marvel?"

And with light, delicate touch the stranger moistened the distended,
immovable lip poor Omassa had dimly seen, through which her lower teeth
had been driven in her fall, and in answer to her pleading, questioning
glances at her own helpless body, told her she was encased in plaster
now, but by and by she would be released, and now she was to be very
quiet and try to sleep. And then she smoothed a tiny wrinkle out of the
white