His father helped him to alight, and supported him up the veranda steps.
"Don't be alarmed, mother, I'm not badly hurt," he said, but staggered as
he spoke, and would have fallen but for his father's sustaining arm, and
by the light from the open door, she saw his eyes close and a deadly
pallor overspread his face.
"He's fainting!" she exclaimed, springing to his other side. "Oh, my boy,
this is no trifle!"
Servants were already crowding about them, and Eddie was quickly borne to
his room, laid upon the bed, and restoratives administered.
"Fire!" his mother said with a start and shudder, pointing to his singed
locks, "oh, where has the child been?"
Her husband told her in a few words.
"And he has saved a life!" she cried with tears of mingled joy and grief,
proud of her brave son, though her tender mother heart ached for his
suffering. "Thank God for that, if--if he has not sacrificed his own."
The door opened and Arthur Conly came in.
Consciousness was returning to the lad, and looking up at his cousin as he
bent over him, "Tell mother," he murmured, "that I'm not much hurt.
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