her, and said,
"My dear, never mind, it will all come right again--only, don't run
away."

"What will come right?"

"Any little misunderstanding with Norman Ogilvie."

"I don't know what you mean," said Ethel, becoming scarlet.

"My dear, you need not try to hide it. I see that you have got into a
fright. You have made a discovery, but that is no reason for running
away."

"Yes it is!" said Ethel firmly, not denying the charge, though reddening
more than ever at finding her impression confirmed.

"Poor child! she is afraid!" said Flora tenderly; "but I will take care
of you, Ethel. It is everything delightful. You are the very girl for
such a heros de Roman, and it has embellished you more than all my Paris
fineries."

"Hush, Flora! We ought not to talk in this way, as if--"

"As if he had done more than walk with, and talk with, nobody else! How
he did hate papa last night. I had a great mind to call papa off, in
pity to him."

"Don't, Flora. If there were anything in it, it would not be proper to
think of it, so I am going home to prevent it." The words were spoken
with averted face and heaving breath.

"Proper?" said Flora. "The Mays are a good old family, and our own
grandmother was an honourable Ogilvie herself. A Scottish baron, very
poor too, has no right to look down--"

"They shall not look down. Flora, it is of no use to talk. I cannot be
spared from home, and I will not put myself in the way of being tempted
to forsake them all."

"Tempted!" said Flora, laughing. "Is it such a wicked thing?"

"Not in others, but it would be wrong in me, with such a state of things
as there is at home."

"I do not suppose he would want you for some years to come. He is only
two-and-twenty. Mary will grow older."

"Margaret will either be married, or want constant care. Flora, I will
not let myself be drawn from them."

"You may think so now; but it would be for their real good to relieve
papa of any of us. If we were all to think as you do, how should we
live? I don't know--for papa told me there will be barely ten thousand
pounds, besides the houses, and what will that be among ten? I am not
talking of yourself, but think of the others!"

"I know papa will not be happy without me, and I will not leave him,"
repeated Ethel, not answering the argument.

Flora changed her ground, and laughed. "We are getting into the
heroics," she said, "when it would be very foolish to break up our
plans, only because w