room where she
quickly regained consciousness. Her first sensation was a deep
thankfulness that the play was over and that she could tell about her
injured knee. Jerry had already done so, a little conscience-smitten,
and Uncle Johnny had rushed away for a doctor. Isobel looked at her
crumpled rose-pink skirts with something akin to loathing and clung
tightly to her mother's hand. Graham, in a voice that sounded far off,
was assuring her that he could carry her out to the car without hurting
her the least bit! And Dana King was asking, at regular intervals, and
in an anxious voice, if she felt better. Oh, it was _nice_ to have them
all care--it made the pain easier----

...She liked the funny bright lights swimming all around her and the
quick steps and the hushed voices.... Mrs. Hicks' little round eyes
blinking at her ... the feel of the soft sheets and the doctor's cold
touch on her poor, swollen knee ... the swinging things before her eyes
and the far-off hum of voices that were really very close and the tiny
star of light over the blur in the other end of the room ... the million
stars ... the slippery taste of the medicine someone gave her ... and
always mother's fingers tight, tight about her own....

"This is very serious," came in a small voice that couldn't be the
doctor's because _he_ spoke with a deep boom ... then she went to
sleep....

CHAPTER XXII

JERRY WINS HER WAY

Poor, pretty Hermia--trying days followed her little hour of triumph.
While the whole school buzzed over the gorgeousness of her costume, over
the satin and silver-heeled slippers, over her prettiness and how she
had really acted just as well as Ethel Barrymore, she lay very still on
her white bed and let one doctor after another "do things" to her poor
knee. There were consultations and X-ray photographs, and all through it
old Doctor Bowerman, who had dosed her through mumps and measles, kept
saying, at every opportunity, with a maddening wag of his bald head: "If
you only hadn't been such a little fool as to walk on it!" Finally,
after what seemed to Isobel a great deal of needless fuss, the verdict
was given--in an impressive now-you'll-do-as-I-tell-you manner; she had
torn the muscles and ligaments of her knee; some had stretched, little
nerves had been injured; she must lie very quietly in bed for a few
weeks and then--perhaps----

"I know what he means," Isobel had cried afterwards, in a passion of
fear; "he means he c