Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/259

Rh Bad news fly fast: it was hardly four o'clock when I got home, but my mother gravely accosted me with—

"Oh, Gilbert!—Such an accident! Rose has been shopping in the village, and she's heard that Mr. Lawrence has been thrown from his horse and brought home dying!"

This shocked me a trifle, as you may suppose; but I was comforted to hear that he had frightfully fractured his skull and broken a leg; for, assured of the falsehood of this, I trusted the rest of the story was equally exaggerated; and when I heard my mother and sister so feelingly deploring his condition, I had considerable difficulty in preventing myself from telling them the real extent of the injuries, as far as I knew them.

"You must go and see him to-morrow," said my mother.

"Or to-day," suggested Rose: "there's plenty of time; and you can have the pony, your horse is tired. Won't you Gilbert—as soon as you've had something to eat?"