But as the days passed these pleasant little excitements failed her, one by one. Mother decided that the nurse was not needed--there was no medicine to be given--and a tutor was engaged, instead, to come each morning. Her school friends grew weary of the details of Isobel's accident and the limitations of her pink-and-white room; other things at school claimed their attention--a new riding club was starting, and the Senior parties; they had not a minute, they begged Gyp to tell Isobel, to play--they were "awfully" sorry and they'd run in when they could. Gyp and Jerry, too, were swimming every afternoon in preparation for the spring inter-school swimming meet. The long hours dragged for the little shut-in; she nursed a not-unpleasant conviction that she was abused and neglected. She consoled her wounded spirit with morbid pictures of how, after a long, bedridden life, she would reap, at its end, a desperate remorse from her selfish, inconsiderate family; she refused to be cheered by the doctor's assertion that she was making a tremendously "nice" recovery and would be as lively on her feet as she'd ever been--though he never failed to add: "You don't deserve it!" One afternoon, three weeks after the accident, Isobel looked at her small desk clock for the fourth time in fifteen minutes. A ceaseless patter of rain against the window made the day unusually trying. Her mother had gone, by the doctor's orders, to Atlantic City for a week's rest, leaving her to the capable ministrations of Mrs. Hicks. That lady had carried off her luncheon tray with the declaration that "a body couldn't please Miss Isobel anyways and if Miss Isobel wanted anything she could ring," and Isobel had mentally determined, making a little face after the departing figure, that she'd die before she asked old Hicks for anything! It was only half past two--it would be an hour before even Tibby would come, or Gyp or Jerry. What day was it? When one spent every day in one small pink-and-white room it was not easy to remember! Thursday--no, Wednesday, because Mrs. Hicks had said the cook was out---- A door below opened and shut. Footsteps sounded from the hall; quick, bounding, they passed her door. "Gyp!" Isobel called. There was no answer. Someone was moving in the nursery; it was Jerry, then, not Gyp. "Jerry!" Still there was no answer. Jerry was too busy turning the contents of her bureau drawer to hear. She found the bathing-cap for which she was hunting and started down the hall. A sudden, pitiful, choky sob halted her flight. When she peeped into Isobel's room Isobel was lying with her face buried in her pillow. "Isobel----" Jerry advanced quickly to the side of the bed. "Is anything wrong? What is the matter?" "I--I wish I--were dead!" "Oh--_Isobel_!" "So would you if you had to lie here day in and day out a--a helpless cripple and left all alone----" Jerry looked around the quiet room. There was something very lonely about it--and that patter of the rain----