potion to Sydney and carried her off to be undressed. Mrs. Evelyn was met upon the way, and while she was hearing her daughter's story, in the midst of the difficulties of unfastening soaked garments, there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Saunders went to it, and a young housemaid said-
'Oh, if you please, ma'am, Mr. Friar Brownlow says its of no consequence, but he has broken two of his ribs, and Mr. Reeves thinks Mrs. Evelyn ought to be informed.'
She spoke so exactly as if he had broken a window, that at first the sense hardly reached the two ladies.
'Broken what?'
'His ribs, ma'am.'
'Oh! I was sure he was hurt!' cried Sydney. 'Oh, mamma! go and see.'
Mrs. Evelyn went, but finding that Reeves and Fordham were with John, and that the village doctor, who lived close by the park gates, had been sent for, she went no farther than the door of the patient's room, and there exchanged a few words with her son. Sydney thought her very hard-hearted, and having been deposited in bed, lay there starting, trembling, and listening, till her brother, according to promise, came down.
'Well, Sydney, what a brave little woman you have shown yourself! John has no words to tell how well you behaved.'
'Oh, never mind that! Tell me about him? Is he not dreadfully hurt?'
'He declares these particular ribs are nothing,' said Fordham, indicating their situation on himself, 'and says they laugh at them at the hospital. He wanted Reeves to have sent for Oswald privately, and then meant to have come down to dinner as if nothing had happened.'
'Mr. Oswald does not mean to allow that,' said Miss Evelyn.
'Certainly not; I told him that if he did anything so foolish I should certainly never call him in. Now let me hear about it, Sydney, for he was in rather too much pain to be questioned, and I only heard that you had shown courage and presence of mind.'
The mother and brother might well shudder as they heard how nearly their joy had been turned into mourning. The river was a dangerous one, and to stem the current in full flood had been no slight exploit; still more the recovery of the boy after receiving such a blow from the tree.
'Very nobly done by both,' said Fordham, bending to kiss his sister as she finished.
'Most thankworthy,' said Mrs. Evelyn.
There was a brief space spent silently by both Mrs. Evelyn and her son on their knees, and then the former went up to the little bachelor-room where in the throng of guests John had been bestowed, and where she found him lying, rather pale, but very content, and her eyes filled with tears as she took his hand, saying-
'You know what I have come for?'
'How is she?' he said, looking eagerly in her face.
'Well, I think, but rather strained and very much tired, so I shall keep her in her room for precaution's sake, as to-morrow will be a bustling day. I trust you will be equally wise.'
'I have submitted, but I did not think it requisite. Pray don't trouble about me.'
'What, when I think how it would have been without you? No, I will not tease you by talking about it, but you know how we shall always feel for you. Are you in much pain now?'
'Nothing to signify, now it has been bandaged, thank you. I shall soon be all right. Did she make you understand her wonderful courage and resolution in holding up that heavy boy all that time?'
Mrs. Evelyn let John expatiate on her daughter's heroism till steps were heard approaching, and his aunt knocked at the door. Perhaps she was the person most tried when she looked into his bright, dark eyes, and understood the thrill in his voice as he told of Sydney's bravery and resolution. She guessed what emotion gave sweetness to his thankfulness, and feared if he did not yet understand it he soon would, and then what pain would be in store for one or other of the cousins. When Mrs. Evelyn asked him if he had really sent the message that his fractured ribs were of no consequence, his aunt's foreboding spirit feared they might prove of only too much consequence; but at least, if he were a supplanter, it would be quite unconsciously.
As Barbara said, when she came up from the diminished dinner-party to spend the evening with her friend-
'Those delightful things always do happen to other people!'
'It wasn't very delightful!' said Sydney.
'Not at the time, but you dear old thing, you have really saved a life! That was always our dream!'
'The boy is not at all like our dream!' said Sydney. 'He is a horrid little fellow.'
'Oh, he will come right now!'
'If you knew the family, you would very much doubt it.'
'Sydney, why will you go on disenchanting me? I thought _the real thing_ had happened to you at last as a reward for having been truer to our old woman than I.'
'I don't think you would have thought hanging on that bank much reward,' said Sydney.
'Adventures aren't nice when they are going on. It is only 'meminisse juvat', you know. You must have felt like the man in Ruckert's Apologue, with the dragon below, and the mice gnawing the root above.'
'My dear, that story kept running in my head, and whenever I looked at the river it seemed to be carrying me away, bank, and stump, and all. I'm afraid it will do so all night. It did, when some hot wine and water they made me have with my dinner sent me to sleep. Then I thought of-
'Time, with its ever rolling stream, Is bearing them away,'
and I didn't know which was Time and which was Avon.'
'In your sleep, or by the river?'
'Both, I think! I seem to have thought of thousands of things, and yet my whole soul was one scream of despairing prayer, though I don't believe I said anything except to bid the boy hold still, till I heard that welcome shout.'
'Ah, the excellent Monk! He is the family hero. I wonder if he enjoys it more than you? Did he really never let you guess how much he was hurt?'
'I asked him once; but he said it was only a dig in the side, and would go off.'
'Ah, well! Allen says it is accident that makes the hero. Now the Monk has been as good as the hyena knight of the Jotapata, who was a mixture of Tyr, with his hand in the wolf's mouth, and of Kunimund, when he persuaded Amala that his blood running into the river was only the sunset.'
'Don't,' said Sydney. 'I won't have it made nonsense of!'
'Indeed,' said Babie, almost piteously, 'I meant it for the most glorious possible praise; but somehow people always seem to take me for a little hard bit of spar, a barbarian, or a baby; I wish I had a more sensible name!'
'Infanta, his princess, is what Duke always calls you,' said Sydney, drawing her fondly to nestle close to her on the bed in her fire-lit room. 'Do you know one of the thoughts I had time for in that dreadful eternity by the river, was how I wished it were you that were going to be a daughter to poor mamma.'
'Esther will make a very kind, gentle, tender one.'
'Oh, yes; but she won't be quite what you are. We have all been children together, and you have fitted in with us ever since that journey when we talked incessantly about Jotapata.' Then, as Babie made no answer, Sydney gave her a squeeze, and whispered, 'I know!'
'Who told you?' asked Babie, with eyes on the fire.
'Mamma, when I was crazy with Cecil for caring for a pretty face instead of real stuff. She thought it would hurt Duke if I went on.'
'Does he care still?' said Babie, in a low voice.
'Oh, Babie, don't you feel how much?'
'Do you know, Sydney, sometimes I can't believe it. I'm sure I have no right to complain of being thought a childish, unfeeling little wretch, when I recollect how hard, and cold, and impertinent I was to him three years ago.'
'It was three years ago, and we were very foolish then,' consolingly murmured the wisdom of twenty, not without recollections of her own.
'I hope it was only foolishness,' said Barbara; 'but I have only now begun to understand the rights of it, only I could not bear the thoughts of seeing him again. And now he is so kind!'
'Do you wish you had?'
