Tim had come by this time, fastening his suspenders as he came, and caring less for his appearance than his mother.  She had disappeared, but soon returned with teeth, and hair, and clothes in place, and herself ready for the emergency.  Following Tim’s directions they had put Eloise on a couch, where she lay with her eyes closed, and so still that they thought she had fainted.

“Bring the camphire, Timothy, and the hartshorn, and start up the oil stove for hot water, and move lively.”  Mrs. Biggs said to her son.  “I don’t believe she’s broke her laig, poor thing.  How white she is,” she continued, laying her hand on Eloise’s forehead.

This brought the tears in a copious shower, as Eloise sat up and said, “It is my ankle.  I think it is sprained.  If you could get off my boot.”

She tried to lift it, but let it drop with a cry of pain.

“I’ll bet it’s sprained, and a sprain is wus than a break.  I had one twenty years ago come Christmas, and went with my knee on a chair two weeks, and on crutches three,” was Mrs. Biggs’s consoling remark, as she held the lamp close to the fast-swelling foot, to which the wet boot clung with great tenacity.

“Oh, I can’t bear it,” Eloise said, as the process of removing her boot commenced; then, closing her eyes, she lay back upon the cushions, while one after another, Mrs. Biggs, Howard, Jack, and Tim worked at the refractory boot.

It was such a small foot, Jack thought, pitying the young girl, as he saw spasms of pain upon her face, where drops of sweat were standing.  He wiped these away with Mrs. Biggs’s apron, lying in a chair, and smoothed her hair, and took one of her clenched hands in his, and held it while the three tried to remove the boot.

“’Tain’t no use,—­it’s got to be cut off,—­mine did.  Tim, bring me the butcher knife,—­the sharpest one,” Mrs. Biggs said.

Eloise shuddered, and thought of the only other pair of boots she had,—­her best ones, which were to have lasted a year.  But there was no alternative.  The boot must be cut off, and Jack continued to hold her hands while, piece by piece, the wet leather dropped upon the floor.

“Now for the stockin’; that’ll come easier,” Mrs. Biggs said.

“Must you take that off now?” Eloise asked, her maidenly modesty prevailing over every other feeling.

Howard and Jack understood, and went to the window, while the stocking followed the fate of the boot; and when they came back to the couch Eloise’s foot was in a basin of hot water, and Mrs. Biggs was gently manipulating it, and declaring it the worst sprain she ever knew, except her own, which, after twenty years troubled her at times, and told her when a storm was coming.

“Ought she to have a doctor?” Jack asked, and Mrs. Biggs replied, “A doctor?  What for, except to run up a bill.  I know what to do.  She’ll have to keep quiet a spell; wormwood and vinegar and hot water will do the rest.  Tim, go up garret and get a handful of wormwood.  It’s the bundle of ’arbs to your right.  There’s catnip, and horehound, and spearmint, and sage, and wormwood.  Be lively, and put it to steep in some vinegar, and bring me that old sheet in the under bureau drawer for bandages.”