.
He summoned Louisa, and inquired fruitlessly for his mother; no one knew
whither she had gone; it would not do to wait for her. He stood by the sofa
and prepared the necessary bandages, while his sister could only cry over
and caress the sufferer. When the physician came the white dimpled arm was
bared; and he discovered that the bone was broken. The setting was
extremely painful, but she lay with closed eyes and firmly compressed lips,
uttering no sound, giving no token of the torture, save in the wrinkling of
her forehead. They bound the arm tightly, and then the doctor said the
ankle was badly strained and swollen, but there was, luckily, no fracture.
He gave minute directions to the minister and withdrew, praising the
patient's remarkable fortitude. Louisa would talk, and her brother sent her
off to prepare a room for her friend.

"I think I had better go back to the Institution, Mr. Young. It will be a
long time before I can walk again, and I wish you would have me carried
back. Dr. ---- will be uneasy, and will prefer my returning, as father left
me in his charge." She tried to rise, but sank back on the pillow.

"Hush! hush! You will stay where you are, little cripple; I am only
thankful you happened to be here."

He smoothed the folds of her hair from her temples, and for the first time
played with the curls he had so often before been tempted to touch. She
looked so slight, so childish, with her head nestled against the pillow,
that he forgot she was almost sixteen, forgot everything but the beauty of
her pale face, and bent over her with an expression of the tenderest love.
She was suffering too much to notice his countenance, and only felt that he
was very kind and gentle. Mrs. Young came in very soon, and heard with the
deepest solicitude of what had occurred. Irene again requested to be taken
to the school, fearing that she would cause too much trouble during her
long confinement to the house. But Mrs. Young stopped her arguments with
kisses, and would listen to no such arrangements; she would trust to no one
but herself to nurse "the bruised Southern lily." Having seen that all was
in readiness, she insisted on carrying her guest to the room adjoining
Louisa's, and opening into her own. Mr. Young had gone to Boston the day
before, and, turning to her son, she said--

"Harvey, as your father is away, you must take Irene upstairs; I am not
strong enough. Be careful that you do not hurt her."

She led t