"Not a scratch.

He was out with his keepers last night, and they had a brush with poachers; and Martin, the head keeper was shot in the leg.

Bled a good deal, so they sent for me; but no danger.

I picked up your uncle here on his way to see him, and so I gave him a lift there and back.
That is all, I assure you." And Dr.Brown and Mrs.Eccles, straining over her geraniums, both came to the same conclusion, namely, that, as Mrs.Eccles elegantly expressed it, "Miss Ruth wanted Mr.Dare." "And he'll have her, too, I'm thinking, one of these days," Mrs.Eccles would remark to the circle of her acquaintance.
Indeed, the match was discussed on numerous ladders, with almost as much interest as the unfailing theme of the damsons themselves.
And Dare rode over to the rectory as often as he used to do before a certain day in August, when he had found Ruth under the chestnut-tree--the very day before Mrs.Alwynn started on her screen, now the completed glory of the drawing-room.
And was Ruth beginning to like him?
As it had not occurred to her to ask herself that question, I suppose she was _not_.
Dare had grown very quiet and silent of late, and showed a growing tendency to dark hats.

His refusal had been so unexpected that the blow, when it came, fell with all the more crushing force.