as the two elder girls made this exclamation,
Mary proceeded to a rapturous embrace. "Get along, Mary, you are
throttling one. Mr. Everard inquired for my father and Margaret, and
said he'd call to-morrow, and Hoxton and Wilmot kept on wishing he was
there."

"I wish he had been!" said Ethel; "he would have taken such delight in
it; but, even if he could have gone, he doubted whether it would not
have made Norman get on worse from anxiety."

"Well, Cheviot wanted me to send up for him at dinner-time," said Harry;
"for as soon as we sat down in the hall, June turned off giddy, and
could not stay, and looked so horrid, we thought it was all over with
him, and he would not be able to go up at all."

"And Cheviot thought you ought to send for papa!"

"Yes, I knew he would not be in, and so we left him lying down on the
bench in the cloister till dinner was over."

"What a place for catching cold!" said Flora.

"So Cheviot said, but I couldn't help it; and when we went to call him
afterwards, he was all right. Wasn't it fun, when the names were called
over, and May senior at the head! I don't think it will be better when I
am a post-captain myself! But Margaret has not heard half yet."

After telling it once in her room, once in the nursery, in whispers
like gusts of wind, and once in the pantry, Harry employed himself in
writing--"Norman is Dux!" in immense letters, on pieces of paper, which
he disposed all over the house, to meet the eyes of his father and
Richard on their return.

Ethel's joy was sadly damped by Norman's manner. He hardly spoke--only
just came in to wish Margaret good-night, and shrank from her
affectionate sayings, departing abruptly to his own room.

"Poor fellow! he is sadly overdone," said she, as he went.

"Oh!" sighed Ethel, nearly ready to cry, "'tis not like what I used to
fancy it would be when he came to the head of the school!"

"It will be different to-morrow," said Margaret, trying to console
herself as well as Ethel. "Think how he has been on the strain this
whole day, and long before, doing so much more than older boys. No
wonder he is tired and worn out."

Ethel did not understand what mental fatigue was, for her active,
vigorous spirit had never been tasked beyond its powers.

"I hope he will be like himself to-morrow!" said she disconsolately. "I
never saw him rough and hasty before. It was even with you, Margaret."

"No, no, Ethel you aren't going to blame your own Norm