'Not that,' said Ethel; 'but we little thought how ill poor Ave is.'
'Dangerously?' said Aubrey, gravely.
'Not perhaps immediately so; but Tom means to marry at once, that he may have a chance of bringing her home to see Leonard.'
'Another shock for Leonard,' said Aubrey, quite subdued, 'why can't he have a little respite?'
'May they at least meet once more!' said Ethel; 'there will be some comfort in looking to that!'
'And what a fellow Tom is to have thought of it,' added Aubrey. 'Nobody will ever dare to say again that he is not the best of the kit of us! I must be off now to the meet: but if you are writing, Ethel, I wish you would give her my love, or whatever he would like, and tell him he is a credit to the family. I say, may I tell George Rivers?'
'Oh yes; it will soon be in the air; and Charles Cheviot will be down on us!'
Away went Aubrey to mount the hunter that George Rivers placed at his service.
Gertrude, who had been struck dumb, looked up to ask, 'Then it is really so?'
'Indeed it is.'