Mrs. Dalrymple, with her daughters and their guest, Mary Lynn, sat in one of the old-fashioned rooms of the Grange, they and dinner alike awaiting the return of the shooting-party. Old-fashioned as regarded its construction and its carved-oak panelling--dark as mahogany, but handsome withal--and opening into a larger and lighter drawing room. Mrs. Dalrymple, an agreeable woman of three or four and forty, had risen, and was bending over Miss Lynn's tambour-frame, telling her it was growing too dusk to see. Selina Dalrymple sat at the piano, trying a piece of new music, talking and laughing at the same time; and Alice, always more or less of an invalid, lay on her reclining sofa near the window. "Here is Mr. Cleveland," cried Alice, seeing him pass. "I said he would be sure to come here to dinner, mamma." Mrs. Dalrymple raised her head, and went, in her simple, hospitable fashion, to open the hall-door. He followed her back to the oak-parlour, and stood just within it. "What a long day you have had!" she exclaimed. "I think you must all be tired. Where are the others?" "They are behind," replied the clergyman. He had been determining to make light of the accident at first telling; quite a joke of it; to prevent alarm. "We have bagged such a quantity, Mrs. Dalrymple: and your husband has asked me to dinner: and is going to accommodate me with a coat as well. Oh, but, talking of bagging, and dinner, and coats, I hope you have plenty of hot water in the house; baths, and all the rest of it. One of us has hurt his leg, and we may want no end of hot water to bathe it." "That is Charley, I know," said Selina. "He is always getting into some scrape. Look at what he did at Lee's last week." "No; it is not Charley for once. Guess again." "Is it Oscar?" "Oscar!" interposed Alice, from her sofa. "Oscar is too cautious to get hurt." "What should you say to its being me?" said Mr. Cleveland, sitting down, and stretching out one leg, as if it were stiff and he could not bend it. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Dalrymple, running forward with a footstool. "How did it happen? You ought not to have walked home." "No," said he, "my leg is all right. It is Dalrymple's leg: he has hurt his a little." "How did he do it? Is it the knee? Did he fall?" was reiterated around. "It is nothing," interrupted Mr. Cleveland. "But we would not let him walk home. And I came on to tell you, lest you should be alarmed at seeing him brought in." "Brought in!" echoed Mrs. Dalrymple. "How do you mean? Who is bringing him?" "Hardy and Farmer Lee. Left to himself, he might have been for running here, leaping the ditches over the shortest cut; so we just made him lie down on a mattress, and they are carrying it. Miss Judith supplied us." "Has he sprained his leg?" "No," carelessly returned Mr. Cleveland. "He has managed to get a little shot into it; but----" "Shot!" interrupted Mrs. Dalrymple, in frightened tones. "_Shot?_"