e throats, and was laid up at
Cocksmoor. Richard was dismayed by his passive obedience--a novelty to
the gentle eldest, who had all his life been submitting, and now was
puzzled by his guest's unfailing acquiescence without a token of
preference or independence: and comically amazed at the implicit
fulfilment of his recommendation to keep the throat in bed--a wise
suggestion, but one that the whole house of May, in their own persons,
would have scouted. Nothing short of the highest authority ever kept
them there.

The semblance of illness was perhaps a good starting-point for a return
to the ways of the world; and on the day week of his going to
Cocksmoor, Ethel found him by the fire, beginning his letters to his
brother and sister, and looking brighter and more cheery, but so devoid
of voice, that speech could not be expected of him.

She had just looked in again after some parish visiting, when a quick
soldierly step was heard, and in walked Aubrey.

'No; I'm not come to you, Ethel; I'm only come to this fellow;' and he
ardently grasped his hand. 'I've got leave till Monday, and I shall
stay here and see nobody else.--What, a sore throat? Couldn't you get
wrapped up enough between the two doctors?'

Leonard's eyes lighted as he muttered his hoarse 'Thank you,' and Ethel
lingered for a little desultory talk to her brother, contrasting the
changes that the three years had made in the two friends. Aubrey,
drilled out of his home scholarly dreaminess by military and practical
discipline, had exchanged his native languor for prompt upright
alertness of bearing and speech; his eye had grown more steady, his
mouth had lost its vague pensive expression, and was rendered sterner
by the dark moustache; definite thought, purpose, and action, had
moulded his whole countenance and person into hopeful manhood, instead
of visionary boyhood. The other face, naturally the most full of fire
and resolution, looked strangely different in its serious unsmiling
gravity, the deeply worn stamp of patient endurance and utter
isolation. There was much of rest and calm, and even of content--but
withal a quenched look, as if the lustre of youth and hope had been
extinguished, and the soul had been so driven in upon itself, that
there was no opening to receive external sympathy--a settled
expression, all the stranger on a face with the clear smoothness of
early youth. One thing at least was unchanged--the firm friendship and
affectio