tudy.

"I don't think it is very bad," said Kitty. "Dan threw a piece of wood,
and it--it hit Jabez on the forehead, and--and oh, Fanny, what will
father think? I believe he is angry with us already, and you know he
was out all night and is very tired, and he will be more angry if
there's no hot water or anything he wants, and I--I did so want to help
him."

Fanny, who appeared more concerned about Jabez than about her master,
was, with a lavish use of sticks, kindling a big blaze under a small
kettle, and soon had water ready as hot as it was needed. Kitty,
greatly relieved, ran back with it to her father.

"I suppose, as usual, there was none," he said gravely, "though I have
said until I am tired that in a doctor's house there should always be a
supply;" and Kitty could find nothing to say.

Jabez by this time was seated in a chair, facing the light. He was
looking very pale and subdued. The thought of having his wound
washed and dressed upset him far more than did the wound itself.
Betty and Anthony were sitting on two of the stiffest and most
uncomfortable-looking chairs in the room, with very grave expressions
on their pale but not too clean faces. Dan was standing by the window
looking intensely nervous and uncomfortable. He glanced frequently from
Jabez to his father, and back again, and Kitty could see he was longing
to say something, but did not know how to. She was very sorry that it
had been Dan who had dealt the fatal blow. She almost wished that it
had been she herself who had done it, for their father was never quite
so severe with her or Betty as with the boys.

With the feeling still on her that trouble was coming, she fried to make
herself as useful as possible; but as she knew little or nothing as to
where anything was kept, she was more of a hindrance than a help, and
her hopes were blighted by her father's order to them all to leave the
room.

"I will see you presently," he said sternly. "I will either come to you
or send for you when I am ready;" and, feeling very crushed, they made
their way to the old nursery, now called "the schoolroom," and there
waited with curiously mingled feelings for what was to happen next.
They did not expect it to be anything _very_ serious; but they hated to
vex their father, and they felt that now they really had vexed him.

Oh how slowly the minutes passed, and what a lot of them there were!
It seemed to them that time enough had elapsed in which to