"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 _might_ perhaps, have allowed 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.