It was a lively dinner-table, after all. Hope had arisen in every heart, and Mr. Cleveland was at his merriest. He had great faith in cheerful looks round a sick-bed, and he did not want desponding ones to be displayed to his friend, Dalrymple.
Before the meal was over, a carriage was beard to approach the house. It contained Miss Upton. The news of the accident had spread; it had reached Court Netherleigh; and Miss Upton got up from her own dinner-table and ordered her carriage. She came in, all concern, penetrating to the midst of them in her unceremonious way. "And the fault was Robert's!" she exclaimed, after listening to the recital, as she turned her condemning eyes upon the culprit. "I am sorry to hear that."
"You cannot blame me as I blame myself, Miss Upton," he said ingenuously, a moisture dimming his sight. "I am always doing wrong; I know that. But this time it was really an accident that might have happened to any one. Even to Oscar, with all his prudence."
"I beg your pardon, young man; you are wrong there," returned Miss Upton. "Oscar Dalrymple would have taken care to hold his gun so that it could not go off unawares. Never you fear that he will shoot any one. I hope and trust your father will get well, Robert Dalrymple; and I hope you will let this be a lesson to you."
"I mean it to be one," humbly answered Robert.
Miss Upton carried the three young ladies back to Court Netherleigh, leaving Oscar and Robert to follow on foot: no reason why they should not go, she told them, and it would help to keep the house quiet for its master.
"Will it prove of serious consequence, this hurt?" she took an opportunity of asking aside of Mr. Cleveland, as she was going out to the carriage.
"No, I hope not. I think not. It is only a few stray shots in the leg."
"I don't like those stray shots in the leg, mind you," returned Miss Upton.
"Neither do I, in a general way," confessed the Rector.