Court Netherleigh. Mrs. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ her to stop here," conceded Robert, with a mock serious face. "On condition that she acted as my housekeeper."

      They all laughed; they were secure in the love of Robert. In the midst of which, the young man felt some one touch his shoulder. It was Mrs. Dalrymple.

      "Dearest mamma," said he, letting Alice and her chair go forward to their natural position, and stepping backwards, laughing still. "Did you hear what we were saying?"

      "Yes, Robert, I heard it," she sighed. "Have you a mind for a drive tonight?"

      "A drive!" exclaimed Robert. "To find the emigrant ship?"

      "I have told James to get the gig ready. He can go, if you do not, but I thought you might be the quicker driver. It is to bring Mr. Forth. Some change for the worse has taken place in your father."

      All their mirth was forgotten instantly. They sat speechless.

      "He complained, just now, of the bandage being too tight, and said Robert had pretended to loosen it, but must have only fancied that he did so," continued Mrs. Dalrymple, speaking to them generally. "It is much inflamed and swollen, and he cannot bear the pain. I fear," she added, sitting down and bursting into tears, "that we have reckoned on his recovery too soon—that it is far off yet."

      Robert flew on the wings of the wind, and soon brought back Mr. Forth. Mrs. Dalrymple and Oscar went with the surgeon to the sick-chamber. Uncovering the leg, he held the wax-light close to examine it. One look, and he glanced up with a too-expressive face.

      Oscar, always observant, noticed it; no one else. Mrs. Dalrymple asked the cause of the change, the sudden heat and pain.

      "It is a change—that—does—sometimes come on," drawled Mr. Forth; who of course, as a medical man, would have protested against danger had he known his patient was going to drop out of his hands the next moment but one.

      "That redness about it," said Mr. Dalrymple, "that's new."

      "A touch of erysipelas," remarked the surgeon.

      His manner soothed them, and the vague feeling of alarm subsided. None of them looked to the worst side—and a day or two passed on. Dr. Tyler came again now as well as Mr. Forth.

      One morning when the doctors were driving out of the stable-yard—that way was more convenient to the high-road than the front-entrance—they met Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Forth pulled up, and the Rector leaned on the gig while he talked to them, one hand on the wing, the other on the dashboard.

      "How is he this morning?"

      "We were speaking of you, sir," replied Mr. Forth: "saying that you, as Mr. Dalrymple's chief friend, would be the best to break the news to the Grange. There is no hope."

      "No hope of his life?"

      "None. A day or two must terminate it."

      Mr. Cleveland was inexpressibly shocked. He could not at first speak. "This is very sudden, gentlemen."

      "Not particularly so. At least, not to us. We have done all in our power, but it has mastered us. Will you break it to him?"

      "Yes," he answered, quitting them. "It is a hard task; but some one must do it." And he went straight to Mr. Dalrymple.

      In the evening, Robert, who had been away all day on some matter of business, returned. As he went to his father's room to report what he had done, his mother came out of it. She had her handkerchief to her face: Robert supposed she was afraid of draughts. He approached the bed.

      Mr. Dalrymple, looking flushed and restless, took Robert's hand and held it in his. "Have they told you the news, my boy?"

      "No," answered Robert, never suspecting the true meaning of the words. "Is there any?"

      Robert Dalrymple the elder gazed at him; a yearning gaze. And an uneasy sensation stole over his son.

      "I am going to leave you, Robert."

      He understood, and sank down by the side of the bed. It was as if a thunderbolt had struck him: and one that would leave its trace throughout life.

      "Father! It cannot be!"

      "In a day or two, Robert. That is all of time they can promise me now."

      He cried out with a low, wailing cry, and let his head drop on the counterpane beside his father.

      "You must not take it too much to heart, my son. Remember: that is one of my dying injunctions."

      "I wish I could die for you, father!" he passionately uttered. "I shall never forgive myself."

      "I forgive you heartily and freely, Robert. My boy, see you not that this must be God's good will? I could die in peace, but for the thought of your mother and sisters. I can but leave them to you: will you take care of and cherish them?"

      He lifted his head, speaking eagerly. "I will, I will. They shall be my only care. Father, this shall ever be their home. I swear——"

      "Be silent, Robert!" interrupted Mr. Dalrymple, his voice raised in emotion. "How dare you? Never take a rash oath."

      "I mean to fulfil it, father; just as though I had taken it. This shall ever be my mother's home. But, oh, to lose you thus! My father, say once more that you do forgive me. Oh, father, forgive and bless me before you die!"

      Death came, all too surely; and the neighbourhood, struck with consternation, grieved sincerely for Mr. Dalrymple.

      "If Mr. Robert had but let me draw that charge from his gun, the Squire would have been here now," bewailed Hardy, the gamekeeper.

       CHAPTER IV.

      AT CHENEVIX HOUSE.

      It was a magnificent room, everything magnificent about it, as it was fitting the library of Chenevix House should be: a fine mansion overlooking Hyde Park. What good is there to be imagined—worldly good—that fortune, so capricious in her favours, had not showered down upon the owner of this house, the Earl of Acorn? None. With his majority he had come into a princely income, for his father, the late earl, died years before, and the estates had been well nursed. Better had it been, though, for the young Earl of Acorn that he had been born a younger son, or in an inferior rank of life. With that spur to exertion, necessity, he would have pushed on and exercised the talents which had been liberally bestowed on him; but gliding as he did into a fortune that seemed unlimited, he plunged into every extravagant folly of the day, and did his best to dissipate it. He was twenty-one then; he is walking about his library now—you may see him if you choose to enter it—with some five-and-thirty good years added to his life: pacing up and down in perplexity, and possessing scarcely a shilling that he can call his own. His six-and-fifty years have rendered his slender figure somewhat portly, and an expression of annoyance is casting its shade on his clear brow and handsome features; but no deeper lines of sorrow are marked there. Not upon these careless natures does the hand of care leave its sign.

      But the earl is—to make the best of it—in a brown study, and he scowls his eyebrows, and purses his lips, and motions with his hands as he paces there, communing СКАЧАТЬ