Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ much, was it, sir?" cried Robert, deprecatingly, who remembered very little about the matter, beyond the fact that the bills had gone in to Moat Grange.

      "Pretty well," returned Mr. Dalrymple, with a cough. "The sum total averaged between six and seven hundred a-year, for every year that you were there."

      "Surely not!" uttered Robert, startled to contrition.

      "It seems to have made but little impression on you; you knew it at the time. But I am not recalling this to cast reproach on you now, Robert: I only wanted to explain how it is that we have been unable to put by. Not a day after I am well, will I delay beginning it. We will curtail our expenses, even in things hitherto considered necessary, no matter what the neighbourhood may think; and I shall probably insure my life. Your mother and I were talking of this all day yesterday."

      "I can do with less than I spend, father; I will make the half of it do," said Robert, in one of his fits of impulse.

      "We shall see that," said Mr. Dalrymple, with another cough. "But you do not know the trouble this has been to me since the accident, Robert. I have lain here, and dwelt incessantly upon the helpless condition of your mother and sisters—left helpless on your hands—should I be called away."

      "My dear father, it need not trouble you. Do you suppose I should ever wish to disturb my mother and sisters in the possession of their home? What do you take me for?"

      "Ah, Robert, these generous resolves are easily made; but circumstances more often than not mar them. You will be wanting a home of your own—and a wife."

      Robert's face took a very conscious look. "Time enough for that, sir."

      "If you and Mary Lynn can both think so."

      "You—don't—object to her, do you, sir?" came the deprecating question.

      "No, indeed I don't object to her: except on one score," replied Mr. Dalrymple. "That she is too good for you."

      Robert laughed. "I told her that myself, and asked her to give me up. It was the night of the accident, when I was so truly miserable."

      "Well, Robert, you could not have chosen a better girl than Mary Lynn. She will have money——"

      "I'm sure I've not thought whether she will or not," interrupted Robert, quite indignantly.

      "Of course not; I should be surprised if you had," said Mr. Dalrymple, in the satirical tone his son disliked. "Commonplace ways and means, pounds, shillings and pence, are beneath the exalted consideration of young Mr. Dalrymple. I should not wonder but you would set up to live upon air tomorrow, if you had nothing else to live upon."

      "Well, father, you know what I meant—that I am not mercenary."

      "I should be sorry if you were. But when we contemplate the prospect of a separate household, it is sometimes necessary to consider how its bread-and-cheese will be provided."

      "I have the two hundred a-year that my own property brings in—that Aunt Coolly left me. There's that to begin with."

      "And I will allow you three or four hundred more; Mary will bring something and be well-off later. Yes, Robert, I think you may set up your tent, if you will. I like young men to marry young. I did myself—at three-and-twenty: your present age. Your uncle Claude did not, and ran into folly. And, Robert, I should advise you to begin and read for the Bar. Better have a profession."

      "I did begin, you know, father."

      "And came down here when you were ill with that fever, and never went up again. Moat Grange will be yours eventually——"

      "Not for these twenty years, I hope, father," impulsively interrupted Robert. "You are spared to us, and I can never be sufficiently thankful for it. Why, in twenty years you would not be an old man; not seventy."

      "I am thankful, too, Robert; thankful that my life is not cut off in its midst—as it might have been. The future of your mother and sisters has been a thorn in my side since I was brought face to face with death. In health we are apt to be fearfully careless."

      "Hear me, father," cried Robert, rising, and speaking with emotion. "Had the worst happened, they should have been my first care; I declare it to you. First and foremost, even before Mary Lynn."

      "My boy, I know your heart. Are you going down? That's right. I think I have talked enough. Bring a light here first. My leg is very uneasy."

      "Does it pain you?" inquired Robert, who had noticed that his father was getting restless. "How tight the bandage is! The leg appears to be swollen."

      "The effect of the bandage being tight," remarked Mr. Dalrymple. "Loosen it, and put plenty of lotion on."

      "It feels very hot," were Robert's last words.

      The evening went on. Just before bed-time, the young people were all sitting round the fire in the oak-parlour, Mrs. Dalrymple being with her husband. So assured did they now feel of no ill results ensuing, that they had grown to speak lightly of it. Not of the accident: none would have been capable of that: but of the circumstances attending it. Selina had just been recommending Robert never in future to touch any weapon stronger than a popgun.

      "I don't mean to," said Robert.

      "What a long conference you had with papa tonight after Mary came down," went on Selina. "What was it about, Robert? Were you getting a lesson how to carry loaded guns?"

      "Not that," put in Oscar Dalrymple: "Robert has learnt that lesson by heart. He was getting some hints how to manage Moat Grange."

      Robert looked up quickly, almost believing Oscar must have been behind the chamber wall.

      "Your father has come so very near to losing it," added Oscar. "A chance like that brings reflection with it."

      "Only to think of it!" breathed Alice—"that we have been so near losing the Grange! If dear papa had died, it would have come to Robert."

      "Ay, all Robert's; neither yours nor your mother's," mused Oscar. "I dare say the thought has worried Mr. Dalrymple."

      "I know it has," said Robert, in his hasty way. "But there was no occasion for it."

      "No, thank Heaven!" breathed Selina.

      "However things had turned out, my father might have been easy on that score. And we were talking of you," added Robert, in a whisper to Mary Lynn, while making believe to regard attentively the sofa cushion at her ear. "And of setting up our tent, Mary; and of ways and means—and I am to go on reading for the Bar. It all looks couleur-de-rose."

      "Robert," returned Alice, "should you have sent us adrift, had you come into the old homestead?"

      "To be sure I should, in double-quick time," answered he, tilting Alice's chair back to kiss her, and keeping it in that position. "'Sharp the word and quick the action' it would have been with me then. I should have paid a premium with you both, and shipped you off by an emigrant ship to some old Turkish Sultan who buys wives, so that you might never trouble me or the Grange again."

      "And mamma, Robert?"

      "Oh, mamma—I СКАЧАТЬ