with the indomitable spirit and pluck
that were Judy's characteristics.

"Didn't you have any pain?" he asked, quite taken aback to find such
spirits and so serious a condition together.

"H'm, in my side sometimes," she answered carelessly. "How long
will it be before I can get up, Doctor?" She used to ask the latter
question of him every morning, though, if the truth were known, she
felt secretly more than a little diffident at the idea of standing up
again.

There was a languor and weariness in her limbs that made her doubtful
if she could run about very much, and slower modes of progressing she
despised. Besides this, there was a gnawing pain, under her arms,
and the cough was agony while it lasted.

Still, she was not ill enough to lose interest in all that was going
on, and used to insist upon the others telling her everything that
happened outside--who made the biggest score at cricket, what flowers
were out in her own straggling patch of garden, how many eggs the
fowls laid a day, how the guinea-pigs and canaries were progressing,
and what was the very latest thing in clothes or boots the new
retriever puppy had devoured.

And Bunty used to bring in the white mice and the blind French
guinea-pig, and let them run loose over the counterpane, and Pip did
most of his carpentering on a little table near, so she could see
each fresh stage and suggest improvements as he went along.

Meg, who had almost severed her connection with Aldith, devoted
herself to her sister, and waited on her hand and foot; she made her
all kinds of little presents--a boot-bag, with compartments; a
brush-and-comb bag, with the monogram "J.W.," worked in pink silk;
a little work-basket, with needle-book, pin-cushion, and all complete.
Judy feared she should be compelled to betake herself to tidy habits
on her recovery.

Her pleasure in the little gifts started a spirit of competition
among the others.

For one whole day Pip was invisible, but in the evening he turned up,
and walked to the bedside with a proud face. He had constructed a
little set of drawers, three of which actually opened under skilful
coaxing.

"It's not for doll-clothes," he said, after she had exhausted all the
expressions of gratitude in common use, "because I know you hate
them, but you can keep all your little things in them, you see--hair
strings, and thimbles, and things."

There was a sound of dragging outside the door and presently Bunty
came in