sses," which, being overheard and repeated, led to
the information that he was Ethel's pupil, whereupon Dr. Spencer began
to inquire after the school, and to exclaim at his friend for having
deserted it in the person of Tom. Dr. May looked convicted, but said it
was all Norman's fault; and Dr. Spencer, shaking his head at Blanche,
opined that the young gentleman was a great innovater, and that he was
sure he was at the bottom of the pulling down the Market Cross, and the
stopping up Randall's Alley--iniquities of the "nasty people," of which
she already had made him aware.

"Poor Norman, he suffered enough anent Randall's Alley," said Dr. May;
"but as to the Market Cross, that came down a year before he was born."

"It was the Town Council!" said Ethel.

"One of the ordinary stultifications of Town Councils?"

"Take care, Spencer," said Dr. May. "I am a Town Council man my-self--"

"You, Dick!" and he turned with a start of astonishment, and went into
a fit of laughing, re-echoed by all the young ones, who were especially
tickled by hearing, from another, the abbreviation that had, hitherto,
only lived in the favourite expletive, "As sure as my name is Dick May."

"Of course," said Dr. May. "'Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou
not suspect my years? One that hath two gowns, and everything handsome
about him!'"

His friend laughed the more, and they betook themselves to the College
stories, of which the quotation from Dogberry seemed to have reminded
them.

There was something curious and affecting in their manner to each other.
Often it was the easy bantering familiarity of the two youths they had
once been together, with somewhat of elder brotherhood on Dr. Spencer's
side--and of looking up on Dr. May's--and just as they had recurred to
these terms, some allusion would bring back to Dr. Spencer, that the
heedless, high-spirited "Dick," whom he had always had much ado to keep
out of scrapes, was a householder, a man of weight and influence; a
light which would at first strike him as most ludicrous, and then mirth
would end in a sigh, for there was yet another aspect! After having
thought of him so long as the happy husband of Margaret Mackenzie, he
found her place vacant, and the trace of deep grief apparent on the
countenance, once so gay--the oppression of anxiety marked on the brow,
formerly so joyous, the merriment almost more touching than gravity
would have been, for the former nature seemed rather s