seemed to be considering the situation severely, and, acting on her own
responsibility, she picked Diavolo up in the midst of the general
hilarity, and carried him out of the room with her hand pressed tight on
his thigh. The child had come down armed with an open penknife, with which
to defend Angelica should they encounter any ogres or giants on the
stairs, and in scrambling up the table he had managed to strike himself in
the thigh with it, and had severed the femoral artery; but, with the
curious shame which makes some children dislike to own that they are hurt,
he had contrived to conceal the accident for a moment with his nightgown
under cover of the flowers, and it was only Evadne's observant eye and
presence of mind that had saved his life. No one in the house could make a
tourniquet, and she sat with the child on her knee while a doctor was
being fetched, keeping him quiet as by a miracle, and, stopping the
hemorrhage with the pressure of her thumb, not even his parents daring to
relieve her, since Diavolo had never been known to be still so long in his
life with anybody else. She held him till the operation of tying the
artery was safely accomplished, by which time Mr. Diavolo was sufficiently
exhausted to be good and go to sleep; and then she quietly fainted. But
she was about again in time to catch him when he woke, and keep him quiet,
and so by unwearied watching she prevented accidents until all danger was
over.

Diavolo afterward heard his parents praise her in unmeasured terms to
_her_ parents one day in her absence. She happened to return while
they were still in the room, and, being doubtless wide awake to the
advantages of such a connection, he took the opportunity of promising
solemnly, in the presence of such respectable witnesses, to marry her as
soon as he was able.

She had added the word "tourniquet" to her vocabulary during this time,