s are coming true, and the days of petticoat government
ending. However, even if he would not be in your way, he could not
afford to lose six months' study before going into residence.

'Your affectionate sister,
'Etheldred May.'

Tom wrote that he should spend a night in London and come home. When
he came, the family exclaimed that his microscope, whose handsome case
he carried in his hand, was much grown. 'And improved too, I hope'
said Tom, proceeding to show off various new acquisitions and exchanges
in the way of eye-pieces, lenses, and other appliances of the most
expensive order, till his father exclaimed,

'Really, Tom, I wish I had the secret of your purse.'

'The fact is,' said Tom, 'that I thought more would be gained by
staying at home, so I turned my travels into a binocular tube,' &C.

Aubrey and Gertrude shouted that Tom certainly did love the microscope
better than any earthly thing; and he coolly accepted the inference.

Somewhat later, he announced that he had decided that he should be
better able to profit by the London lectures and hospitals, if he first
studied for half a year at the one at Stoneborough, under the direction
of his father and Dr. Spencer.

Dr. May was extremely gratified, and really esteemed this one of the
greatest compliments his science had ever received; Dr. Spencer could
not help observing, 'I did not think it was in him to do such a wise
thing. I never can fathom the rogue. I hope he was not bitten during
his benevolent exertions last winter.'

Meantime, Tom had observed that he had time to see that Aubrey was
decently prepared for Cambridge, and further promoted the boy to be his
out-of-door companion, removing all the tedium and perplexity of the
last few weeks, though apparently merely indulging his own
inclinations. Ethel recognized the fruit of her letter, and could well
forgive the extra care in housekeeping required for Tom's critical
tastes, nay, the cool expulsion of herself and Gertrude from her twenty
years' home, the schoolroom, and her final severance from Aubrey's
studies, though at the cost of a pang that reminded her of her
girlhood's sorrow at letting Norman shoot ahead of her. She gave no
hint; she knew that implicit reserve was the condition of his strange
silent confidence in her, and that it would be utterly forfeited unless
she allowed his frater