llows should be about, it would never do
for you to be seen going to bind up his wounds, but I can tell him you
are much obliged, and all that.'

'Obliged, indeed!' said Ethel. 'What, for making me the laughing-stock
of the school?'

'No, indeed,' cried Aubrey, distressed. 'He said not a word--they only
found it out--because he found that seat for you, and papa sent him
away with you. They only meant to poke fun, and it was his caring that
made it come home to him. I wonder you don't like to find that such a
fellow stood up for you.'

'I don't like to be made ridiculous.'

'Tom does not know it, and shall not,' eagerly interposed Aubrey.

'Thank you,' said she, with all her heart.

'Then don't be savage. You know he can't help it if he does think you
so handsome, and it is very hard that you should be affronted with him,
just when he can't see out of one of his eyes.'

'For that matter,' said Ethel, her voice trembling, 'one likes
generosity in any sort of a cause; but as to this, the only way is to
laugh at it.'

Aubrey thought this 'only way' hardly taken by the cachinnation with
which she left him, for he was sure that her eyes were full of tears;
and after mature consideration he decided that he should only get into
a fresh scrape by letting Leonard know that she was aware of the combat
and its motive.

'If I were ten years younger, this might be serious,' meditated Ethel.
'Happily, it is only a droll adventure for me in my old age, and I have
heard say that a little raving for a grown-up woman is a wholesome sort
of delusion, at his time of life. So I need not worry about it, and it
is pretty and touching while it lasts, good fellow!'

Ethel had, in fact, little occasion to worry herself; for all special
manifestations of Leonard's devotion ceased. Whether it were that Tom
with his grave satirical manner contrived to render the house
disagreeable to both brother and sister, or whether Leonard's boyish
bashfulness had taken alarm, and his admiration expended itself in the
battle for her charms, there was no knowing. All that was certain was,
that the Wards seldom appeared at Dr. May's, although elsewhere Mary
and Aubrey saw a great deal of their respective friends, and through
both, Ethel heard from time to time of Leonard, chiefly as working hard
at school, but finding that his illness had cost him not only the last
half year's learning, but some memory and power of application. He was
merging