"0h, mamma, how you terrified me! I
thought you were a man that had got into
the house."

"Nonsense! Tlie men are all gone away.
There are soldiers all round the place, seeking
for their work now it is too late. Miss Hale
is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt.
I am going for the doctor."

"Oh! don't, mamma! they'll murder you."
She clung to her mother's gown. Mrs.
Thornton wrenched it away with no gentle
hand.

"Find me some one else to go; but that
girl must not bleed to death."

"Bleed! oh, how horrid! How has she
got hurt?"

"I don't know,—I have no time to ask.
Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make
yourself of use. Jane is with her; and I
trust it looks worse than it is. Jane has
refused to leave the house, cowardly woman!
And I won't put myself in the way of any
more refusals from my servants, so I am
going myself."

"Oh, dear, dear! " said Fanny, crying, and
preparing to go down rather than be left
alone, with the thought of wounds and bloodshed
in the very house.

"Oh Jane! " said she, creeping into the
dining-room, " what is the matter? How
white she looks! How did she get hurt?
Did they throw stones into the
drawing-room?"

Margaret did indeed look white and wan,
although her senses were beginning to return
to her. But the sickly daze of the swoon
made her still miserably faint. She was
conscious of movement around her, and of
refreshment from the eau de Cologne, and a
craving for the bathing to go on without
intermission; but when they stopped to talk,
she could no more have opened her eyes, or
spoken to ask for more bathing, than the
people who lie in death-like trance can move
or utter sound to arrest the awful preparations
for their burial, while they are yet fully
aware not merely of the actions of those
around them, but of the idea that is the
motive of such action.

Jane paused in her bathing to reply to
Miss Thornton's question.

"She'd have been safe enough, miss, if she'd
stayed in the drawing-room, or come up to
us; we were in the front garret, and could
see it all, out of harm's way."

"Where was she then?" said Fanny,
drawing nearer by slow degrees as she
became accustomed to the sight of Margaret's
pale face.

"Just before the front door, with master!"
said Jane, significantly.

"With John! with my brother! How did
she get there?"

"Nay, miss, that's not for me to say,"
answered Jane, with a slight toss of her
head.

'Sarah did"——

"Sarah what?" said Fanny, with
impatient curiosity.

Jane resumed her bathing, as if what Sarah
did or said was not exactly the thing she
liked to repeat.

"Sarah what?" asked Fanny, sharply.
"Don't speak in these half sentences, or I
can't understand you."

"Well, miss, since you will have it, Sarah,
you see, was in the best place for seeing,
being at the right-hand window; and she
says, and said at the very time too, that she
saw Miss Hale with her arms about master's
neck, hugging him before all the people."

"I don't believe it," said Fanny. " I know
she cares for my brother; any one can see
that; and I dare say she'd give her eyes if
he'd marry her,—which he never will, I can
tell her. But I don't believe she'd be so bold
and forward as to put her arms round his
neck."

"Poor young lady! she's paid for it dearly
if she did. It's my belief that the blow has
given her such an ascendancy of blood to the
head as she'll never get the better from. She
looks like a corpse now."

"Oh I wish mamma would come! " said
Fanny, wringing her hands. " I never was
in the room with a dead person before."

"Stay, miss! She's not dead: her
eyelids are quivering, and here's wet tears
a-coming down her cheeks. Speak to her,
Miss Fanny!"

"Are you better now? " asked Fanny, in
a quavering voice.

No answer; no sign of recognition; but a
faint pink colour returned to her lips,
although the rest of her face was ashen
pale.

Mrs. Thornton came hurriedly in with the
nearest surgeon she could find.

"How is she? Are you better, my dear?"
as Margaret opened her filmy eyes, and gazed
dreamily at her. " Here is Mr. Lowe come
to see you."

Mrs. Thornton spoke loudly and distinctly,
as to a deaf person. Margaret tried to rise,
and drew her ruffled, luxuriant hair
instinctively over the cut.

"I am better now," said she, in a very
low, faint voice. " I was a little sick."

She let him take her hand and feel her
pulse. The bright colour came for a moment
into her face, as he asked to examine the
wound in her forehead; and she glanced up
at Jane, as if shrinking from her inspection
more than from the doctor's.

"It is not much, I think. I am better
now. I must go home."

"Not until I have applied some strips of
plaster, and you have rested a little."

She sat down hastily, without another
word, and allowed it to be bound up.

"Now, if you please," said she, " I must
go. Mamma will not see it, I think. It is
under the hair, is it not?"

"Quite; no one could tell"