“My dear Emily, what the deuce are you about?  I tell you I have a prejudice against kissing female relations.  It is too tame, and somewhat of a bore, child, especially to a sick man.”

His father now approached him with a grave, but by no means an unfeeling countenance, and extending his hand, said, “I fear, John, that this has been a foolish business; but I am glad to find that, so far as your personal danger was concerned, you have come off so safely.  How do you find yourself?”

“Rapidly recovering, my lord, I thank you.  At first they considered the thing serious; but the bullet only grazed the rib slightly, although the flesh wound was, for a time, troublesome enough.  I am now, however, free from fever, and the wound is closing fast.”

“Whilst this brief dialogue took place, Lady Emily sat on a chair by the bedside, her large, brilliant eyes no longer filled with tears, but open with astonishment, and we may as well add with pain, at the utter indifference with which her brother received her affectionate caresses.  After a few moments’ reflection, however, her generous heart supposed it had discovered his apology.

“Ah,” thought the sweet girl, “I had forgotten his wound, and of course I must have occasioned him great pain, which his delicacy placed to a different motive.  He did not wish to let me know that I had hurt him.”  And her countenance again beamed with the joy of an innocent and unsuspecting spirit.

“But, Dunroe,” she said—­“John, I mean, won’t you soon be able to get up, and to walk about, or, at all events, to take an airing with us in the carriage?  Will you not, dear John?”

“Yes, I hope so, Emily.  By the way, Emily, you have grown quite a woman since I saw you last.  It is now better than two years, I think, since then.”

“How did you like the Continent, John?”

“Why, my dear girl, how is this?  What sympathy can you feel with the experience of a young fellow like me on the Continent?  When you know the world better, my dear girl, you will feel the impropriety of asking such a question.  Pray be seated, my lord.”

Lord Cullamore sat, as if unconsciously, in an arm-chair beside the table on which were placed his son’s dressings and medicines, and resting his head on his hand for a moment, as if suffering pain, at length raised it, and said,

“No, Dunroe; no.  I trust my innocent girl will never live to feel the impropriety of asking a question so natural?”

“I’m sure I hope not, my lord, with all my heart,” replied Dunroe.  “Have you been presented, Emily?  Have you been brought out?”

“She has been presented,” said her father, “but not brought out; nor is it my intention, in the obvious sense of that word, that she ever shall.”

“Oh, your lordship perhaps has a tendency to Popery, then, and there is a convent in the background?  Is that it, my good lord?” he asked, smiling.