"I'm dizzy," she said faintly. Then she saw Allan's face over hers,
and farther away the others, grave and anxious, and she smiled.
"Why, Allan, you poor boy, I've worried you to death. I'm--sorry--dear."
Her breath came a little hard for a moment, for it had been a bad
fall; but she was nearly all right again in a few minutes more, and
laughing.
"Allan, if you don't stop looking as if the world had come to an
end, I shall faint again, whether I want to or not," she said. "You
foolish man, didn't you ever see anything like that before?"
"The world nearly did come to an end," said Allan in a low voice.
She made no answer to this in words, but Joy saw her catch Allan's
hand and hold it hard for a moment before the men helped her to rise
to her feet. She was perfectly able to walk, she declared, after
standing a moment and recovering from the dizziness that came over
her for a moment when she got up. She went back to the house with
Allan's arm around her, and the children, whom nobody had as yet
taken time to scold, following, awestruck and very meek, at a safe
distance behind.
"He _did_ act as if the world had come to an end," mused Joy
aloud. "I was frightened for a minute, though."
"You didn't show it. You were very brave and clear-headed," John
told her comfortingly.... "I don't know that I'd have behaved very
differently in his place. As he said, it wasn't I."
"Oh, was that what he meant?" said Joy.
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