it again; and then I suppose he looked down
and saw Harry. So he let himself down by
the boughs of the trees to the ledge where
Harry lay half dead, and with his poor thigh
broken. There he had lain ever since the
night before; he had been returning to tell
the master that he had safely posted the
letter, and the first words he said when they
recovered him from the exhausted state he
was in, were "(Miss Galindo tried hard not
to whimper as she said it)," 'It was in time,
sir, I see'd it put in the bag with my own
eyes.'"

"But where is he?" asked I. "How did
Mr. Gray get him out?"

"Ay! there it is, you see. Why the old
gentleman (I daren't say Devil in Lady
Ludlow's house), is not so black as he is
painted; and Mr. Gray must have a deal of
good in him, as I say at times; and then at
others, when he has gone against me, I can't
bear him, and think hanging too good for
him. But he lifted the poor lad, as if he had
been a baby, I suppose, and carried him up
the great ledges that were formerly used for
steps; and laid him soft and easy on the
wayside grass, and ran home and got help and a
door, and had him carried to his house, and
laid on his bed; and then somehow, for the
first time either he or any one else perceived
it, he himself was all over blood—his own
blood—he had broken a blood-vessel; and
there he lies in the little dressing-room, as
white and as still as if he were dead; and
the little imp in Mr. Gray's own bed, sound
asleep, now his leg is set, just as if linen
sheets and a feather bed were his native
element, as one may say. Really now he is
doing so well, I've no patience with him lying
there where Mr. Gray ought to be. It is just
what my lady always prophesied would come
to pass, if there was any confusion of ranks."

"Poor Mr. Gray!" said I, thinking of his
flushed face, and his feverish, restless ways
when he had been calling on my lady not an
hour before his exertions on Harry's behalf.
And I told Miss Galindo how ill I had
thought him.

"Yes," said she. "And that was the reason
my lady had sent for Doctor Trevor. Well,
it has fallen out admirably, for he looked well
after that old donkey of a Prince, and saw
that he made no blunders."

Now "that old donkey of a Prince" meant
the village surgeon, Mr. Prince, between
whom and Miss Galindo there was war to
the knife, as they often met in the cottages,
when there was illness, and she had her queer,
odd recipes, which he, with his grand
pharmacopœia, held in infinite contempt, and the
consequence of their squabbling had been,
not long before this very time, that he had
established a kind of rule, that into whatever
sick room Miss Galindo was admitted, there
he refused to visit. But Miss Galindo's
prescriptions and visits cost nothing, and were
often backed by kitchen-physic; so, though
it was true that she never came but she
scolded about something or other, she was
generally preferred as medical attendant to
Mr. Prince.

"Yes, the old donkey is obliged to tolerate
me, and be civil to me; for you see I got
there first, and had possession as it were, and
yet my lord the donkey likes the credit of
attending the parson, and being in consultation
with as grand a county-town doctor as
Doctor Trevor. And Doctor Trevor is an
old friend of mine" (she sighed a little, some
time I may tell you why), "and treats me
with infinite bowing and respect; so the
donkey, not to be out of medical fashion,
bows too, though it is sadly against the grain:
and he pulled a face as if he had heard a
slate-pencil gritting against a slate, when I
told Doctor Trevor I meant to sit up with
the two lads, for I call Mr. Gray little more
than a lad, and a pretty conceited one, too,
at times."

"But why should you sit up, Miss Galindo?
It will tire you sadly."

"Not it. You see there is Gregson's
mother to keep quiet; for she sits by her lad,
fretting and sobbing, so that I'm afraid of
her disturbing Mr. Gray; and there's Mr.
Gray to keep quiet, for Doctor Trevor says
his life depends on it; and there is medicine
to be given to the one, and bandages to be
attended to for the other; and the wild
horde of gypsy brothers and sisters to be
turned out, and the father to be held in from
showing too much gratitude to Mr. Gray,
who can't bear it,—and who is to do it all,
but me? The only servant is old lame Betty,
who once lived with me, and would leave me
because she said I was always bothering—
(there was a good deal of truth in what she
said, I grant, but she need not have said it;
a good deal of truth is best let alone at the
bottom of the well), and what can she do,—
deaf as ever she can be, too?"

So Miss Galindo went her ways; but not
the less was she at her post in the morning;
a little crosser and more silent than usual;
but the first was not to be wondered at, and
the last was rather a blessing.

Lady Ludlow had been extremely anxious
both about Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson.
Kind and thoughtful in any case of illness
and accident, she always was; but somehow,
in this, the feeling that she was not quite——
what shall I call it?—"friends" seems hardly
the right word to use as to the possible feeling
between the Countess Ludlow and the
little vagabond messenger, who had only
once been in her presence,—that she had
hardly parted from either as she could have
wished to do, had death been near, made her
more than usually anxious. Doctor Trevor
was not to spare obtaining the best medical
advice the county could afford; whatever he
ordered in the way of diet was to be prepared
under Mrs. Medlicott's own eye, and sent
down from the Hall to the Parsonage. As