" said Ethel,
with her usual lucidity of expression.

"Don't you like him the better for keeping out of all these follies?"

"Norman does not call them so, I am sure."

"No, he is too good to condemn--"

"It is not only that," said Ethel. "I know papa thinks that the first
grief, coming at his age, and in the manner it did, checked and subdued
his spirits, so that he has little pleasure in those things. And he
always meant to be a clergyman, which acted as a sort of consecration on
him; but many things are innocent; and I do believe papa would like it
better, if Norman were less grave."

"Yes," said Meta, remembering the Sunday talk, "but still, he would not
be all he is--so different from others--"

"Of course, I don't mean less good, only, less grave," said Ethel, "and
certainly less nervous. But, perhaps, it is a good thing; dear mamma
thought his talents would have been a greater temptation than they seem
to be, subdued as he has been. I only meant that you must not condemn
all that Norman does not do. Now, goodnight."

Very different were the feelings with which those two young girls
stretched themselves in their beds that night. Margaret Rivers's
innocent, happy little heart was taken up in one contemplation.
Admiration, sympathy, and the exultation for him, which he would not
feel for himself, drew little Meta entirely out of herself--a self that
never held her much. She was proud of the slender thread of connection
between them; she was confident that his vague fancies were but the
scruples of a sensitive mind, and, as she fell sound asleep, she
murmured broken lines of Decius, mixed with promises not to look.

Etheldred heard them, for there was no sleep for her. She had a parley
to hold with herself, and to accuse her own feelings of having been
unkind, ungrateful, undutiful towards her father. What had a fit of
vanity brought her to? that she should have been teased by what would
naturally have been her greatest delight! her father's pleasure in being
with her. Was this the girl who had lately vowed within herself that her
father should be her first earthly object?

At first, Ethel blamed herself for her secret impatience, but another
conviction crossed her, and not an unpleasing one, though it made her
cheeks tingle with maidenly shame, at having called it up. Throughout
this week, Norman Ogilvie had certainly sought her out. He had looked
disappointed this evening--there was no doubt that he was a