that Leonard was a savage spectacle for the eyes of Stoneborough, and hurrying home by the short cut. Ethel met him in extreme alarm. Gertrude’s half-restored senses had been totally scattered by the sight of the crimson traces on the spot of Leonard’s operations, and she had been left to Mary’s care; while Ethel and Aubrey had hastened home, and not finding any one there, the latter had dashed off to Bankside, whilst Ethel waited, arranging the little fellow’s bed, and trying to trust to Leonard’s message, and not let her mind go back to that fearful day of like waiting, sixteen years ago, nor on to what she might have to write to Norman and Meta of the charge they had sent to her. Her father’s cheerful face at first was a pang, and then came the rebound of gladness at the words. ‘He is coming. No fear for him, gallant little man—thanks for God’s mercy, and to that noble fellow, Leonard.’
At the same moment Aubrey burst in—’No one at Wright’s—won’t be in no one knows how long! What is to become of us?’ And he sank down on a chair.
‘Ay, what would become of any of us, if no one had a better pate than yours, sir?’ said Dr. May. ‘You have one single perfection, and you had better make the most of it—that of knowing how to choose your friends. There’s the carriage.’
After a moment’s delay, the cushion was lifted out with the little wounded cavalier, still like a picture; for, true to his humming-bird nature, a few scarcely-conscious movements of his hands had done away with looks of disarray—the rich glossy curls were scarcely disordered, and no stains of blood had adhered to the upper part of his small person, whereas Leonard was a ghastly spectacle from head to foot.
‘So, Master Dicky-bird,’ said Dr. May, as they rested him a moment on the hall-table, ‘give me that claw of yours. Yes, you’ll do very well, only you must go to bed now; and, mind, whatever you did when you were in Fairy- land, we don’t fly here in Stoneborough—and it does not answer.’
‘I am not to go to bed for being naughty, am I?’ said Dickie, his brave white lip for the first time quivering; ‘indeed, I did not know it was wrong.’
The poor little man’s spirits were so exhausted, that the reassurance on this head absolutely brought the much-dreaded tears into his eyes; and he could only be carried up gently to his bed, and left to be undressed by his aunt, so great an aggravation to the troubles of this small fragment of independence, that it had almost overset his courtesy and self-command. There was no contenting him till he had had all traces of the disaster washed from face and hands, and the other foot; and then, over his tea, though his little clear chirrup was weak, he must needs give a lucid description of Leonard’s bandaging, in the midst of which came a knock at the door, and a gasping voice—’I’ll be quite quiet—indeed I will! Only just let me come in and kiss him, and see that he is safe.’
‘O, Auntie Daisy, have you got your hat?’
Wan, tear-stained, dishevelled, Gertrude bit her lip to save an outburst, gave the stipulated kiss, and retreated to Mary, who stood in the doorway like a dragon.
‘Auntie Daisy has been crying,’ said Dickie, turning his eyes back to Ethel. ‘Please tell her I shall be well very soon, and then I’ll go up again and try to get her hat, if I may have a hook and line—I’ll tell you how.’
‘My dear Dickie, you had better lie down, and settle it as you go to sleep,’ said Ethel, her flesh creeping at the notion of his going up again.
‘But if I go to sleep now, I shall not know when to say my prayers.’
‘Had you not better do so now, Dickie?’
Next came the child’s scruple about not kneeling; but at last he was satisfied, if Aunt Ethel would give him his little book out of the drawer—that little delicately-illuminated book with the pointed writing and the twisted cipher, Meta’s hand in every touch. Presently he looked up, and said: ‘Aunt Ethel, isn’t there a verse somewhere about giving the angels charge? I want you to find it for me, for I think they helped me to hold on, and helped Leonard upon the narrow place. You know they are sure to be flying about the church.’
Ethel read the ninety-first Psalm to him. He listened all through, and thanked her; but in a few minutes more he was fast asleep. As she left the room she met Leonard coming down and held out her hands to him with a mute intensity of thanks, telling him, in a low voice, what Dickie had said of the angels’ care.
‘I am sure it was true,’ said Leonard. ‘What else could have saved the brave child from dizziness?’
Down-stairs Leonard’s reception from Dr. May was, ‘Pretty well for a nervous man!’
‘Anybody can do what comes to hand.’
‘I beg your pardon. Some bodies lose their wits, like your friend Aubrey, who tells me, if he had stood still, he would have fainted away. As long as nerves can do what comes to hand, they need not be blamed, even if they play troublesome tricks at other times, as I suspect they are doing now.’
‘Yes; my face is aching a little.’
‘Not to say a great deal,’ said the Doctor. ‘Well, I am not going to pity you; for I think you can feel to-day that most of us would be glad to be in your place!’
‘I am very glad,’ said Leonard.
‘You remember that child’s parents? No, you have grown so old, that I am always forgetting what a boy you ought to be; but if you had ever seen the tenderness of his father, and that sunbeam of a Meta, you would know all the more how we bless you for what you have spared them. Leonard, if anything had been needed to do so, you have won to yourself such a brother in Norman as you have in Aubrey!’
Meantime Ethel was soothing Gertrude, to whom the shock had been in proportion to the triumphal heights of her careless gaiety. Charles Cheviot had come in while his wife was restoring her; and he had plainly said what no one else would have intimated to the spoilt darling—that the whole accident had been owing to her recklessness, and that he had always expected some fatal consequences to give her a lesson!
Gertrude had been fairly cowed by such unwonted treatment; and when he would only take her home on condition of composure and self-command, her trembling limbs obliged her to accept his arm, and he subdued her into meek silence, and repression of all agitation, till she was safe in her room, when she took a little bit of revenge upon Mary by crying her heart out, and declaring it was very cruel of Charles, when she did not mean it.
And Mary, on her side, varied between assurances that Charles did not mean it, and that he was quite right— the sister now predominating in her, and now the wife.
‘Mean what?’ said Ethel, sitting down among them before they were aware.
‘That—that it was all my fault!’ burst out Gertrude. ‘If it was, I don’t see what concern it is of his!’
