Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/190

 insisted stoutly, "and I am going in to see Miss Miranda. You have not told me yet how her father is."

"I had orders not to tell you until I must," he said gently. "He is worse, much worse. The doctor has been here all day and Miss Miranda looks like a ghost."

"Oh," cried Betsey in distress, then added with almost a sob of relief, "Oh, here's David!"

For David, striding out of the shadows, seemed a very comforting presence.

"I nailed them," he announced elegantly the moment he came near. "The examiners were a clever set of fellows, they managed to guess at all the things I knew and to ask me about very little else. I make them my compliments. And now, how are things going?"

He heard the bad news in troubled silence, took up Elizabeth's basket without a word and turned to the house. Poor old Michael stood staring after them, hopeless and distressed, unable to speak.

Miss Miranda stood by the door, talking to the doctor who was just going.

"He is quieter," the doctor was saying, "and the night may pass easily. But if he should be delirious again—"

"I will be here, sir," David announced briefly, at his side.