"I wonder, now, if Cotton at the lodge has heard anything of the poachers again this year, round Arleigh way?" "Not that I know of," said Ruth, surprised at the simplicity of the question. "Dear sakes! and to think of 'em at Vandon last night, and Mr. Dare and the keepers out all night after 'em." Ruth was interested in spite of herself. "And the doctor sent for in the middle of the night," continued Mrs. Eccles, covertly eying Ruth. "Poor young gentleman! For all his forrin ways, there's a many in Vandon as sets store by him." "I don't think you need be uneasy about Mr. Dare," said Ruth, coldly, conscious that Mrs. Eccles was dying to see her change color. "If anything had happened to him Mr. Alwynn would have heard of it. And now," rising, "I must be going; and if I were you, Mrs. Eccles, I should not listen to all the gossip of the village." "Me listen!" said Mrs. Eccles, much offended. "Me, as is too poorly so much as to put my foot out of the door! But, dear heart!" with her usual quickness of vision, "if there isn't Mr. Alwynn and Dr. Brown riding up the street now in Dr. Brown's gig! Well, I never! and Mr. Alwynn a-getting out, and a-talking as grave as can be to Dr. Brown. Poor Mr. Dare! Poor dear young gentleman!" Ruth was conscious that she beat rather a hurried retreat from Mrs. Eccles's cottage, and that her voice was not quite so steady as usual when she asked the doctor if it were true that Mr. Dare had been hurt. "All the village will have it that he is killed; but he is all right, I assure you, Miss Deyncourt," said the kind old doctor, so soothingly and reassuringly that Ruth grew pink with annoyance at the tone. "Not a scratch. He was out with his keepers last night, and they had a brush with poachers; and Martin, the head keeper was shot in the leg. Bled a good deal, so they sent for me; but no danger. I picked up your uncle here on his way to see him, and so I gave him a lift there and back. That is all, I assure you." And Dr. Brown and Mrs. Eccles, straining over her geraniums, both came to the same conclusion, namely, that, as Mrs. Eccles elegantly expressed it, "Miss Ruth wanted Mr. Dare." "And he'll have her, too, I'm thinking, one of these days," Mrs. Eccles would remark to the circle of her acquaintance. Indeed, the match was discussed on numerous ladders, with almost as much interest as the unfailing theme of the damsons themselves. And Dare rode over to the rectory as often as he used to do before a certain day in August, when he had found Ruth under the chestnut-tree--the very day before Mrs. Alwynn started on her screen, now the completed glory of the drawing-room. And was Ruth beginning to like him? As it had not occurred to her to ask herself that question, I suppose she was _not_.