it might be, and whether, if
so, they should be practically the better for it; and proceeding with
metaphysics on her side, and satire on Norman Ogilvie's, to speculate
whether that which is, is best, and the rights and wrongs of striving
for change and improvements, what should begin from above, and what from
beneath--with illustrations often laughter-moving, though they were
much in earnest, as the young heir of Glenbracken looked into his future
life.

Flora had diverged into wondering who would have the living after poor
old Mr. Ramsden, and walked, keeping her husband amused with instances
of his blunders.

Meta, as with Norman she parted from the rest, thought her own dear
Abbotstoke church, and Mr Charles Wilmot, great subjects for content and
thanksgiving, though it was a wonderful treat to see and hear such as
she had enjoyed to-day; and she thought it was a joy, to carry away
abidingly, to know that praise and worship, as near perfection as this
earth could render them, were being offered up.

Norman understood her thought, but responded by more of a sigh than was
quite comfortable.

Meta went on with her own thoughts, on the connection between worship
and good works, how the one leads to the other, and how praise with pure
lips is, after all, the great purpose of existence.--Her last thought
she spoke aloud.

"I suppose everything, our own happiness and all, are given to us to
turn into praise," she said.

"Yes--" echoed Norman; but as if his thoughts were not quite with hers,
or rather in another part of the same subject; then recalling himself,
"Happy such as can do so."

"If one only could--" said Meta.

"You can--don't say otherwise," exclaimed Norman; "I know, at least,
that you and my father can."

"Dr. May does so, more than any one I know," said Meta.

"Yes," said Norman again; "it is his secret of joy. To him, it is never,
I am half sick of shadows."

"To him they are not shadows, but foretastes," said Meta. Silence again;
and when she spoke, she said, "I have always thought it must be such a
happiness to have power of any kind that can be used in direct service,
or actual doing good."

"No," said Norman. "Whatever becomes a profession, becomes an
unreality."

"Surely not, in becoming a duty," said Meta.

"Not for all," he answered; "but where the fabric erected by ourselves,
in the sight of the world, is but an outer case, a shell of mere words,
blown up for the occasion, strung