Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 1.djvu/256

232 Crosbie instantly made an effort to bear the attack gallantly, but he felt that he could not quite command his colour, or prevent a sudden drop of perspiration from showing itself upon his brow. "I had a letter from Allington yesterday," he said. "I suppose you have heard of your brother's encounter with the bull?"

"The bull!" said Lady Julia. And it was instantly manifest to all that her attack had been foiled and her flank turned.

"Good gracious! Lady Julia, how very odd you are!" said the countess.

"But what about the bull?" asked the Honourable George.

"It seems that the earl was knocked down in the middle of one of his own fields."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Alexandrina. And sundry other exclamations were made by all the assembled ladies.

"But he wasn't hurt," said Crosbie. "A young man named Eames seems to have fallen from the sky and carried off the earl on his back."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" growled the other earl, as he heard of the discomfiture of his brother peer.

Lady Julia, who had received her own letters that day from Guestwick, knew that nothing of importance had happened to her brother; but she felt that she was foiled for that time.

"I hope that there has not really been any accident," said Mr. Gazebee, with a voice of great solicitude.

"My brother was quite well last night, thank you," said she. And then the little groups again formed themselves, and Lady Julia was left alone on the corner of a sofa.

"Was that all an invention of yours, sir?" said Alexandrina to Crosbie.

"Not quite. I did get a letter this morning from my friend Bernard Dale,—that old harridan's nephew; and Lord De Guest has been worried by some of his animals. I wish I had told her that his stupid old neck had been broken."

"Fie, Mr. Crosbie!"

"What business has she to interfere with me?"

"But I mean to ask the same question that she asked, and you won't put me off with a cock-and-bull story like that." But then, as she was going to ask the question, dinner was announced.

"And is it true that De Guest has been tossed by a bull?" said the earl, as soon as the ladies were gone. He had spoken nothing