"Be very, very quiet, dear. We can do nothing, and be sure of nothing, till the doctor comes, but--oh yes, thank God, we may hope."
But by the time they had laid him on the mattress in the oriel room Ferdy looked again so ghastly pale that the poor mother's heart went down. There was little they could do; they scarcely dared to undress him till the surgeon came. It was a terrible hour or two's waiting, for Mr. Stern was out, and Larkins had to ride some considerable way before he caught him up on his morning rounds.
Late on the afternoon of that sad day the doctor, coming out of the oriel room, was met by little Christine. She had been watching for him on the stairs. It was his second visit since the morning, and his face was very grave; but its expression altered at once when he caught sight of Chrissie. Though Stern by name, he was very far from stern by nature, and he was very fond of the Ross children, whom he had known nearly all their lives. Besides, it is a doctor's business to cheer up people as much as possible, and he was touched by poor Chrissie's white face. Never had the little girl spent such a miserable day, and thankful though she had been that her darling Ferdy's life had been spared, she was beginning to doubt if after all he _was_ going to get better. Her mother had scarcely left him for an instant; she had been busy arranging the room for him, or rather she had been sitting beside him holding his hand while she gave directions to the servants.
By the doctor's advice Ferdy's own little bed had been brought into the room, and he himself moved on to it, lifted upon the mattress as he lay; and it had, of course, been necessary to carry out some of the other furniture and rearrange things a little. This would not disturb Ferdy, Mr. Stern said, but Ferdy's head was now aching from the cut on his forehead, though it was not a very bad one, and he was tired and yet restless, and could not bear his mother to move away.
So there she sat, and Mr. Ross had gone off to Whittingham by a mid-day train, and no one had given much thought to poor Christine.
"My dear child," said the doctor, "how ill you look! Have you been wandering about by yourself all day?"
"Yes," said Chrissie simply, her lip quivering as she spoke. "There was nothing I could do to help, and they were all busy."