Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

      "What do you mean?"

      "Mr. Cleveland had just before fired off his gun, because he would not bring it indoors loaded. Hardy asked if he should draw the charge from mine, and I answered him, mockingly, that I could take good care of it. Why did I not let him do it?" added the young man, beginning to stride the room in his remorse as he had previously been striding the bed of cabbages. "What an idiot I was!—a wicked, self-sufficient imbecile! You had better give me up at once, Mary."

      She turned and glanced at him with a smile. It brought him back to her side, and he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes by the light of the fire.

      "It may be to your interest," he whispered, in agitation. "Some day I may be shooting you, in one of my careless moods. What do you say, Mary?"

      She said nothing. She only leaned slightly forward and smiled. Robert threw his arms around her, and strained her to him in all the fervency of a first affection. "My darling, my darling! Mary, you are too good for me."

      They were nice-looking young people, both of them, and in love with one another. Robert was three-and-twenty; she only nineteen; and the world looked fair before them. But, that she was too good for him, was a greater truth than Mr. Robert thought.

      Stir was heard in the house now; the medical men were coming downstairs. Their report was favourable. The bleeding had been stopped, the shots extracted, and there was no appearance of danger. A little confinement, perfect quiet, and proper treatment, would, they hoped, soon set all to rights again.

      Dinner had not been thought of. When the cook had nearly succumbed to despair, and Mr. Dalrymple had dropped into a calm sleep, and the anxious ones were gathered together in the oak-parlour, Reuben came in, and said the soup was on the table.

      "Then I will wish you all a good appetite, and be gone," said the Rector to Mrs. Dalrymple.

      "Indeed you will not go without some dinner."

      "I am in a pretty state for dinner," said he, "and I can't worry Dalrymple about coats now. Look at me."

      "Oh, Mr. Cleveland do you think we shall regard your coat! Is this a time to be fastidious? We are not very much dressed ourselves."

      "No?" said the Rector, regarding them. "I am sure you all look well. You are not in shooting-jackets and gaiters and inch-thick boots."

      "I am going to sit down as I am," interrupted Robert, who had not changed a thing since he came in. "A fellow with a dreadful care at his heart has not the pluck to put on a dandy-cut coat."

      Mrs. Dalrymple ended the matter by taking the Rector's arm and bearing him off to the dining-room. The rest followed. Oscar met them in the hall—dressed. He was a small, spare man, cool and self-contained in all emergencies, and fastidious in his habits, even to the putting on of proper coats. His colourless face was rather unpleasing at times, though its features were good, the eyes cold and light, the in-drawn lips thin. Catching Selina's hand, he took her in.

      It was a lively dinner-table, after all. Hope had arisen in every heart, and Mr. Cleveland was at his merriest. He had great faith in cheerful looks round a sick-bed, and he did not want desponding ones to be displayed to his friend, Dalrymple.

      Before the meal was over, a carriage was beard to approach the house. It contained Miss Upton. The news of the accident had spread; it had reached Court Netherleigh; and Miss Upton got up from her own dinner-table and ordered her carriage. She came in, all concern, penetrating to the midst of them in her unceremonious way. "And the fault was Robert's!" she exclaimed, after listening to the recital, as she turned her condemning eyes upon the culprit. "I am sorry to hear that."

      "You cannot blame me as I blame myself, Miss Upton," he said ingenuously, a moisture dimming his sight. "I am always doing wrong; I know that. But this time it was really an accident that might have happened to any one. Even to Oscar, with all his prudence."

      "I beg your pardon, young man; you are wrong there," returned Miss Upton. "Oscar Dalrymple would have taken care to hold his gun so that it could not go off unawares. Never you fear that he will shoot any one. I hope and trust your father will get well, Robert Dalrymple; and I hope you will let this be a lesson to you."

      "I mean it to be one," humbly answered Robert.

      Miss Upton carried the three young ladies back to Court Netherleigh, leaving Oscar and Robert to follow on foot: no reason why they should not go, she told them, and it would help to keep the house quiet for its master.

      "Will it prove of serious consequence, this hurt?" she took an opportunity of asking aside of Mr. Cleveland, as she was going out to the carriage.

      "No, I hope not. I think not. It is only a few stray shots in the leg."

      "I don't like those stray shots in the leg, mind you," returned Miss Upton.

      "Neither do I, in a general way," confessed the Rector.

      Thinking of this, and of that, Miss Upton was silent during the drive home. But it never did, or could, enter into her imagination to suppose that the fair girl, with the sweet and thoughtful grey-blue eyes, sitting opposite her—eyes that somehow did not seem altogether unfamiliar to her memory—was the daughter of that friend of her girlhood, Catherine Grant.

       CHAPTER III.

      LEFT TO ROBERT.

      The eighth day after the accident to Mr. Dalrymple was a day of rejoicing, for he was so far recovered as to be up for some hours. A sofa was drawn before the fire, and he lay on it. The symptoms had all along been favourable, and he now merrily told them that if any one had written to order him a cork leg, he thought it might be countermanded. Mr. Cleveland, a frequent visitor, privately decided that the thanksgiving for his recovery might be offered up in church on the following Sunday—such being the custom in the good and simple place. They all rejoiced with him, paying visits to his chamber by turns. Alice and Miss Lynn had been in together during the afternoon: when they were leaving, he beckoned the latter back, but Alice did not notice, and went limping away. Any great trouble affected Alice Dalrymple's spirits sadly, and her lameness would then be more conspicuous.

      "Do you want me to do anything for you?" asked Mary, returning, and bending over the sofa.

      "Yes," said Mr. Dalrymple, taking possession of both her hands, and looking up with an arch smile: "I want you to tell me what the secret is between you and that graceless Robert."

      Mary Lynn's eyes dropped, and her face grew scarlet. She was unable to speak.

      "Won't you tell me?" repeated Mr. Dalrymple.

      "Has he been—saying anything to you, sir?" she faltered.

      "Not he. Not a word. Some one else told me they saw that he and Miss Lynn had a secret between them, which might possibly bear results some day."

      She burst into tears, got one of her hands free, and held it before her face.

      "Nay, my dear," he kindly said, "I did not wish to make you uncomfortable; quite the contrary. I want just to say one thing, child: that if you and he are wishing to talk secrets to one another, I and my wife will not say nay to it: and from a word your mother dropped to me the last time I was in town, I don't think she would either. Dry up your tears, Mary; it is a laughing matter, not a crying one. Robert is frightfully random at times, but he is good as gold at heart. I invite you and him to drink tea with me this evening. There."

      Mary escaped, half smiles, half tears. And she and Robert had tea with Mr. Dalrymple that evening. He took it early since his illness; six o'clock. Mary made the tea, and Robert waited on his father, who was then in bed. When tea was cleared away, Mary went with it; Robert remained.

      "This might have been an unlucky shot, Charley," Mr. Dalrymple suddenly observed.

      "Oh, father! do not talk about it. I am so thankful!"

      "But