was truth enough in this to seal Ethel's lips from replying that
it was Tom's own fault, since his whole nature and constitution were
far more the cause than his conduct, and she answered, 'You might get
some appointment for the present, till he really wants you.'

'To be ordered home just as I am making something of it, and see as
many cases in ten years as I could in a month in town. Things are
altered since his time, if he could only see it. What was the use of
giving me a first-rate education, if he meant to stick me down here?'

'At least I hope you will think long before you inflict the cruel
disappointment of knowing that not one of his five sons will succeed to
the old practice.'

'The throne, you mean, Ethel. Pish!'

The 'Pish' was as injurious to her hereditary love for 'the old
practice,' and for the old town, as to her reverence for her father.
One angry 'Tom!' burst from her lips, and only the experience that
scolding made him worse, restrained her from desiring him to turn back
if this was the best he had to say. Indeed she wondered to find him
still by her side, holding the gate of the plantation open for her. He
peered under her hat as she went through--

'How hot you look!' he said, laying hold of the handles of the basket.

'Thank you; but it is more cumbrous than heavy,' she said, not letting
go; 'it is not _that_--'

An elision which answered better than words, to show that his speech,
rather than hill or load, had made her cheeks flame; but he only drew
the great basket more decisively from her hand, put his stick into the
handle, and threw it over his shoulder; and no doubt it was a much
greater act of good-nature from him than it would have been from
Richard or Harry.

'This path always reminds me of this very matter,' he said; 'I talked
it over with Meta here, on the way to lay the foundation-stone at
Cocksmoor, till Norman overtook us and monopolized her for good, poor
little thing. She was all in the high romantic strain, making a sort
of knight hospitaller of my father. I wonder what she is like by this
time, and how much of _that_ she has left.'

'Of the high romantic strain? I should think it was as much as ever
the salt of life to her. Her last letter described her contrivances to
make a knapsack for Norman on his visitation tour. Oh, fancy old June
a venerable archdeacon!'

'You don't think a colonial archdeacon is like one of your great portly
swells in a shovel hat.