"Will you sit here whilst I look at it?" he asked, putting a chair with its face to the open window, and its back to the sofa. And she understood the motive and thanked him: and said she would walk about outside. By-and-by, when she was tired of waiting, and all seemed very quiet, she looked in. Arthur had fainted. Sir Geoffry was bathing his forehead with eau-de-Cologne; Picker had run for something in a tumbler and wine stood on the table. "Was it the pain?--did it hurt him very badly?" asked Mary, supposing that the arm had been bathed and perhaps dressed. "I have not done anything to it; I preferred to leave it for Duffham," said Sir Geoffry--and at the same moment she caught sight of the velvet sleeve laid open, and something lying on it that looked like a mass of linen. Mary turned even whiter than the child. "Do not be alarmed," said Sir Geoffry. "Your little nephew is only faint from the loss of blood. Drink this," he added, bringing her a glass of wine. But she would not take it. As Sir Geoffry was putting it on the table, Arthur began to revive. Young children are elastic--ill one minute, well the next; and he began to talk again. "Aunt Mary, are you there?" She moved to the sofa, and took his uninjured hand. "We must not tell grandmamma, Aunt Mary. It would frighten her." "Bless his dear little thoughtful heart!" interjected Hester Picker. "Here comes something." The something proved to be a fly, and it brought Mr. Duffham. Before the groom had reached the village, he overtook this said fly and the surgeon in it, who was then returning home from another accident. Turning round at the groom's news--"Some little child had run against Sir Geoffry's horse, and was hurt"--he came up to the Grange. When Mr. Duffham saw that it was _this_ child, he felt curiously taken aback. Up the room and down the room looked he; then at Sir Geoffry, then at Miss Layne, then at Hester Picker, saying nothing. Last of all he walked up to the sofa and gazed at the white face lying there. "Well," said he, "and what's this? And how did it happen?" "It was the peacock," Arthur answered. "I ran away from Aunt Mary to look at it, and the horse came." "The dear innocent!" cried Hester Picker. "No wonder he ran. It's a love of a peacock." "Don't you think it was very naughty, young sir, to run from your aunt?" returned Mr. Duffham. "Yes, very; because she had told me not to. Aunt Mary, I'll never do it again." The two gentlemen and Hester Picker remained in the room; Mary again left it. The arm was crushed rather badly; and Mr. Duffham knew it would require care and skill to cure it. "You must send to Worcester for its best surgeon to help you," said the baronet, when the dressing was over. "I feel that I am responsible to Major Layne."