Charlotte could only gasp, "Oh, come--quick!"

He followed her, stopping to ask no questions. At the open cellar door
Charlotte stood aside to let him pass.

"Down there--my sister!" she breathed.

"Bring a light, please," said the doctor, and he disappeared down the
stairs. Charlotte lighted a little kitchen lamp and came after him. He
bade her stand by while he made his first brief examination.

"I think the blow on her head isn't serious," he said, presently, "but I
can't tell where else she may be hurt till I get her up-stairs."

He was strong, and he lifted Celia as if she had been a child, and
carried her easily up the steep stairs.

Charlotte led the way to a wide couch in the living-room. As Celia was
laid gently upon it she opened her eyes.

Half an hour later, John Lansing Birch, in his oldest clothes and
wearing a rather disreputable soft hat pulled down over his forehead,
with his hands and face excessively dirty and a lunch-pail on his arm,
pushed open the kitchen door. "_Phew-w!_ Something's burning!" he
shouted. "Celia--Charlotte--where are you all? Great Scott, what a
smudge!"

He strode across the room and lifted from the stove a kettle of
potatoes, from which the water had boiled away some minutes before.