is
profession, "the gentleman has had a narrow chance in the passage of the
ball itself; half an inch would have settled his accounts with this
world."

This information greatly relieved the family, and orders were given to
preserve a silence in the house that would favor the patient's disposition
to quiet, or, if possible, sleep.

Dr. Ives now reached the hall. Mrs. Wilson had never Been the rector in
the agitation, or with the want of self-command he was in, as she met him
at the entrance of the house.

"Is he alive?--is there hope?--where is George?"--cried the doctor, as he
caught the extended hand of Mrs. Wilson. She briefly acquainted him with
the surgeon's report, and the reasonable ground there was to expect
Denbigh would survive the injury.

"May God be praised," said the rector, in a suppressed voice, and he
hastily withdrew into another room. Mrs. Wilson followed him slowly and in
silence; but was checked on opening the door with the sight of the rector
on his knees, the tears stealing down his venerable cheeks in quick
succession. "Surely," thought the widow, as she drew back unnoticed, "a
youth capable of exciting such affection in a man like Dr. Ives, cannot be
unworthy."

Denbigh, hearing of the arrival of his friend, desired to see him alone.
Their conference was short, and the rector returned from it with increased
hopes of the termination of this dreadful accident. He immediately left
the hall for his own house, with a promise of returning early on the
following morning.

During the night, however, the symptoms became unfavorable; and before the
return of Dr. Ives, Denbigh was in a state of delirium from the height of
his fever, and the apprehensions of his friends were renewed with
additional force.

"What, what, my good sir, do you think of him?" said the baronet to the
family physician, with an emotion that the danger of his dearest child
would not have exceeded, and within hearing of most of his children, who
were collected in the ante-chamber of the room in which Denbigh was
placed.

"It is impossible to say, Sir Edward," replied the physician: "he refuses
all medicines, and unless this fever abates, there is but little hope of
recovery."

Emily stood during this question and answer, motionless, pale as death,
and with her hands clasped together, betraying by the workings of her
fingers in a kind of convulsive motion, the intensity of her interest. She
had seen the draught prepared wh