“A month or more.”

The doctor looked grave.  “Has she ever had an injury, Mr. Parlin, such as slipping on the ice, or falling down stairs?”

“No, sir,” replied Mr. Parlin, “I believe not.”

“Not a serious injury that I know of,” said Mrs. Parlin, passing her hand across her forehead, and trying to remember.  “No, I think Prudy has never had a bad fall, though she is always meeting with slight accidents.”

“O, mamma,” said Susy, who had begged to stay in the room, “she did have a fall:  don’t you know, Christmas day, ever so long ago, how she went rolling down stairs with her little chair in her arms, and woke everybody up?”

The doctor caught at Susy’s words.

“With her little chair in her arms, my dear?  And did she cry as if she was hurt?”

“Yes, sir; she said the prongs of the chair stuck into her side.”

“It hurt me dreffully,” said Prudy, who had until now forgotten all about it.  “Susy spoke so quick, and said I was a little snail; and then I rolled over and over, and down I went.”

The doctor almost smiled at these words, lisped out in such a plaintive voice, as if Prudy could not think of that fall even now, without pitying herself very much.

“Just let me see you stand up, little daughter,” said he; for Prudy was lying on the sofa.

But it hurt her to bear her weight on her feet.

She said, “One foot, the ‘lame-knee-foot,’ came down so long, it more than touched the floor.”

The doctor looked sober.  The foot did drag indeed.  The trouble was not in her knee, but in her hip, which had really been injured when she fell down stairs, and the “prongs” of the chair were forced against it.

It seemed to Mrs. Parlin strange that Prudy had never complained of any pain in her side; but the doctor said it was very common for people to suffer from hip-disease, and seem to have only a lame knee.

“Hip-disease!” When Mrs. Parlin heard these words, she grew so dizzy, that it was all she could do to keep from fainting.  It came over her in a moment, the thought of what her little daughter would have to suffer—­days and nights of pain, and perhaps a whole lifetime of lameness.  She had often heard of hip-disease, and was aware that it is a very serious thing.

Do you know, she would gladly have changed places with Prudy, would gladly have borne all the child must suffer, if by that means she could have saved her?  This is the feeling which mothers have when any trouble comes upon their children; but the little ones, with their simple minds, cannot understand it.

CHAPTER VI.

ROSY FRANCES EASTMAN MARY.

Prudy had enjoyed a great many rides in Susy’s beautiful sleigh; but now the doctor forbade her going out, except for very short distances, and even then, he said, she must sit in her mother’s lap.  He wanted her to lie down nearly all the time, and keep very quiet.