A low, faint sigh broke from Lady Eleanor, and, covering her eyes with her hand, she sat for some moments without speaking. “Has any one seen him, sir?” asked Helen, suddenly, and in a voice that showed energy of character had the mastery over every feeling of grief,--“is there a surgeon with him?” “No, Miss Darcy,” said Daly, with a certain haughtiness of manner. “I believe, however, that, although not a professional person, my knowledge of a gunshot wound is scarcely inferior to most men's. I have sent in two directions for a surgeon; meanwhile, with my servant's aid, I have succeeded in extracting the ball--I beg pardon, ladies, I think I heard the noise of wheels; it is probably the doctor.” And, with a deep bow and a measured step, Mr. Bagenal Daly withdrew, leaving Lady Eleanor and her daughter speechless, between grief and terror. CHAPTER VIII. THE “HEAD” OF A FAMILY When Bagenal Daly reached the courtyard, he was disappointed at finding that, instead of the surgeon whose arrival was so anxiously looked for, the visitor was no other than old Dr. Hickman, the father of Hickman O'Reilly, M. P. for the county, and grandfather of that very promising young gentleman slightly presented to our reader in an early chapter. If the acorn be a very humble origin for the stately oak of the forest, assuredly Peter Hickman, formerly of Loughrea, “Apothecary and Surgeon,” was the most unpretending source for the high and mighty house of O'Reilly. More strictly speaking, the process was only a “graft,” and it is but justice to him to say, that of this fact no one was more thoroughly convinced than old Peter himself. Industry and thrift had combined to render him tolerably well off in the world, when the death of a brother who had sought his fortunes in the East--when fortunes were to be found in that region--put him in possession of something above two hundred thousand pounds. Even before this event, he had been known as a shrewd contriver of small speculations, a safe investor of little capital, was conversant, from the habits of his professional life, with the private circumstances of every family of the country where money was wanting, and where repayment was sure; the very temperament of his patients suggested to him the knowledge by which he guided his operations, and he could bring his skill as a medical man into his service, and study his creditors with the eye of a physiologist. When this great accession of wealth so suddenly occurred, far from communicating his good fortune to his friends and neighbors, he merely gave out that poor Tom had left him “his little savings,” “though God knows, in that faraway country, if he'd ever see any of it.” His guarded caution on the subject, and the steady persistence with which he maintained his former mode of life, gave credence to the story, and the utmost estimate of his wealth would not have gone beyond being a snug old fellow “that might give up his business any day.” This was,