if Miss Isobel wanted anything
she could ring," and Isobel had mentally determined, making a little
face after the departing figure, that she'd die before she asked old
Hicks for anything! It was only half past two--it would be an hour
before even Tibby would come, or Gyp or Jerry. What day was it?

When one spent every day in one small pink-and-white room it was not
easy to remember! Thursday--no, Wednesday, because Mrs. Hicks had said
the cook was out----

A door below opened and shut. Footsteps sounded from the hall; quick,
bounding, they passed her door.

"Gyp!" Isobel called. There was no answer. Someone was moving in the
nursery; it was Jerry, then, not Gyp.

"Jerry!" Still there was no answer. Jerry was too busy turning the
contents of her bureau drawer to hear. She found the bathing-cap for
which she was hunting and started down the hall. A sudden, pitiful,
choky sob halted her flight.

When she peeped into Isobel's room Isobel was lying with her face buried
in her pillow.

"Isobel----" Jerry advanced quickly to the side of the bed. "Is anything
wrong? What is the matter?"

"I--I wish I--were dead!"

"Oh--_Isobel_!"

"So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a--a helpless
cripple and left all alone----"

Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely
about it--and that patter of the rain----

"Isn't Mrs. Hicks----"

"Oh--_Hicks_. She's just a crosspatch! You all leave me to servants
because I can't move. Nobody loves me the least little bit. I--I wish I
were dead."

To Jerry there was something very dreadful in Isobel's words. What if
her wish came true, then and there? What if the breath suddenly
stopped--and it would be too late to take back the wish----

"Oh, _don't_ say that again, Isobel. Can't I stay with you?"

Isobel turned such a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart
was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp _had_
selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for
her, she would doubtless be better company than--no one. She slipped the
bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her coat and hat.

"Do you mind staying?" Isobel asked in a very pleading voice.

Jerry might reasonably have answered: "I do mind. I cannot stay; this is
the afternoon of the great inter-school swimming meet and I am late,
now, because I came home for my cap," but she was so thrilled by the
simple fact of Isobel's want