Then she and the doctor talked about me as if I were in the next room, and no way interested in the affair. After many directions given and received, and many injunctions and much emphasis, the doctor rose to go, saying that he should not be able to come again until the day after to-morrow (unless, of course, I should be taken with any unexpected symptoms); in the mean time he hoped he left me in safe hands (with a look direct at Mrs. Roberts). Mr. Rutledge smothered a smile, accompanied him to the door, and parted from him very courteously, then returned to me. He hoped, he said, that I did not mind trusting myself to him during the doctor's absence, and Mrs. Roberts would, he knew, take as good care of me as the doctor himself could. He then went on to say that he had telegraphed my aunt last evening to prevent her feeling any alarm on hearing of the accident, and that he had written to her more fully by mail to-day, telling her of my improvement, and assuring her that it would not be necessary for her to come on, as I could have every care here. "In two or three weeks," he continued, "I trust you will be perfectly well and entirely fit to travel." Two or three weeks! The thought was too dreadful and bursting into tears, I exclaimed: "I am well enough to go now! I had rather go home with the doctor!" Mr. Rutledge was silent for a moment, then sitting down beside me, in the doctor's vacated seat, said, as if he were speaking to a very little child: "You are not well enough to start now; it might do you a great deal of harm. Possibly you may be able to go much sooner than the doctor thinks; only be patient a day or two, and depend upon it, I will let you go the very minute you can bear it." I shook my head and sobbed convulsively. "My dear little girl," he said, "you are too nervous now to be reasonable, but you must try and be quiet and not cry, for that is the very worst thing for you, and will keep you here longer than anything else. Your head aches, doesn't it?" "Yes, dreadfully," I sobbed. "Well, the more you cry, the more it will ache, and the more it aches, the more fever you will have, and that is just what you must get rid of before you can be fit to start for home. You will feel very differently, I assure you, to-morrow morning, after you have had a good night's sleep." "I can't sleep!" I exclaimed. "Oh yes, you can! The doctor has left you some powders that will make that all right, and I will give you one now." He mixed it in a glass that Mrs. Roberts had brought for the purpose, and I drank it, then followed his advice and lay my hot and throbbing head on the pillow. He sat down again, and continued, speaking soothingly, and in a manly, kind voice, still as if I were about eight years old.