st words.

"Never mind," said he to Ethel, "I'll take care of him. He shall comport
himself as if you were all at Nova Zembla. A pretty fellow to talk of
despising fame, and then get a fit of stage-fright!"

"Well, good-night," said Norman, sighing. "It will be over to-morrow;
only remember the spectacles."

Dr. May laughed a good deal at the request, and asked if the rest of
the party were to be blindfolded. Meta wondered that Ethel should have
mentioned the request so publicly; she was a good deal touched by it,
and she thought Dr. May ought to be so.

Good-night was said, and Dr. May put his arm round Ethel, and gave her
the kiss that she had missed for seven nights. It was very homelike,
and it brought a sudden flash of thought across Ethel! What had she been
doing? She had been impatient of her father's monopoly of her!

She parted with Flora, and entered the room she shared with Meta, where
Bellairs waited to attend her little mistress. Few words passed between
the two girls, and those chiefly on the morrow's dress. Meta had some
fixed ideas--she should wear pink. Norman had said he liked her pink
bonnet, and then she could put down her white veil, so that he could be
certain that she was not looking; Ethel vaguely believed Flora meant to
wear--something--

Bellairs went away, and Meta gave expression to her eager hope that
Norman would go through it well. If he would only read it as he did last
Easter to her and Ethel.

"He will," said Ethel. "This nervousness always wears off when it comes
to the point, and he warms with his subject."

"Oh! but think of all the eyes looking at him!"

"Our's are all that he really cares for, and he will think of none of
them, when he begins. No, Meta, you must not encourage him in it. Papa
says, if he did not think it half morbid--the result of the shock to his
nerves--he should be angry with it as a sort of conceit!"

"I should have thought that the last thing to be said of Norman!" said
Meta, with a little suppressed indignation.

"It was once in his nature," said Ethel; "and I think it is the fault
he most beats down. There was a time, before you knew him, when he would
have been vain and ambitious."

"Then it is as they say, conquered faults grow to be the opposite
virtues!" said Meta. "How very good he is, Ethel; one sees it more when
he is with other people, and one hears all these young men's stories!"

"Everything Norman does not do, is not therefore wrong,