old John still moved away, quietly ordering
Dorothy:

"Undo that shawl of yours. Roll them barrels out of the wagon. Take
off your jacket and make a piller of it. Spread the shawl out and
cover him with part of it whilst I lay him down. Poor little Robin!
The 'only son of his mother and she was a widow.'"

Dorothy was glad to obey this strange old man who had been so genial
and was now so stern, and it relieved her distress to be doing
something to help. But as she tried to roll the barrels out, a hand
fell on her arm and the doctor said:

"I'll do that, Miss. They're too heavy for you. I wish you'd persuade
your grandfather to trust me with this poor boy. It would be so much
better."

"He isn't my grandfather. I don't know him--I mean he was taking me--"

But her words fell upon deaf ears, apparently. Having sent the empty
barrels flying where they would, the doctor had now taken the pile of
cushions somebody had brought him and arranged them on the wagon
bottom. Next he calmly relieved John Gilpin of the injured boy and
laid him gently down. Shaking out Dorothy's thick steamer rug, her
"shawl," he carefully covered Robin and, sitting down beside him,
ordered:

"Drive on, farmer! Chauffeur, follow with the car. Lady Jane, the
medicine case. To the nearest house at once."

There was no resisting the firm authority of the physician and John
Gilpin climbed meekly to his seat and at his urgent "gee-ho" the oxen
started onward at a steady gait. But despite his anxiety there was a
satisfaction in their owner's mind that the "nearest house" would be
his own and that it would be his capable "Dame" who would care for
Robin and not a hospital nurse.

Meanwhile Dorothy seemed forgotten both by the people who had returned
to their car and Mr. Gilpin; so, fearing that she would be left alone
by the roadside, she sprang upon the end of the cart and sat there,
her feet dangling over its edge.

Now, indeed, her adventure was proving anything but amusing. What
would Aunt Betty think of her heedless action? Or her dear guardian,
Seth Winters, the "learned Blacksmith," wisest of men, whom the reader
of this series will recall in "Dorothy's Schooling." Would she ever
reach Oak Knowe, and how would this escapade be regarded there?

Into her troubled thoughts now broke a sound of pain, that drove
everything save pity from her mind. The rain was now falling fast and
drenching her new clothes, but her anxiety was only that the i