caution you, but I did not like to seem unkind."

"I wish you had," said Ethel. "Dear little Aubrey! Oh, if papa had not
been there! And I cannot think how, as it was, he could contrive to put
the fire out, with his one hand, and not hurt himself. Margaret it was
terrible. How could I mind so little! Did you see how his frock was
singed?"

"Yes, papa showed it to me. How can we be thankful enough! One thing I
hope, that Aubrey was well frightened, poor little boy."

"I know! I see now!" cried Ethel; "he must have wanted me to make the
fire blaze up, as Richard did one evening when we came in and found it
low; I remember Aubrey clapping his hands and shouting at the flame;
but my head was in that unhappy story, and I never had sense to put the
things together, and reflect that he would try to do it himself. I only
wanted to get him out of my way, dear little fellow. Oh, dear, how bad
it was of me! All from being uplifted, and my head turned, as it used to
be when we were happier. Oh! I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming!"

Ethel sat for a long time with her head hidden in Margaret's pillows,
and her hand clasped by her good elder sister. At last she looked up and
said, "Oh, Margaret, I am so unhappy. I see the whole meaning of it now.
Do you not? When papa gave his consent at last, I was pleased and set
up, and proud of my plans. I never recollected what a silly, foolish
girl I am, and how unfit. I thought Mr. Wilmot would think great things
of it--it was all wrong and self-satisfied. I never prayed at all that
it might turn out well, and so now it won't."

"Dearest Ethel, I don't see that. Perhaps it will do all the better for
your being humbled about it now. If you were wild and high flying, it
would never go right."

"Its hope is in Richard," said Ethel.

"So it is," said Margaret.

"I wish Mr. Wilmot was not coming to-night," said Ethel again. "It would
serve me right if papa were to say nothing about it."

Ethel lingered with her sister till Harry and Mary came up with
Margaret's tea, and summoned her, and she crept downstairs, and entered
the room so quietly, that she was hardly perceived behind her boisterous
brother. She knew her eyes were in no presentable state, and cast them
down, and shrank back as Mr. Wilmot shook her hand and greeted her
kindly.

Mr. Wilmot had been wont to come to tea whenever he had anything to say
to Dr. or Mrs. May, which was about once in ten or twelve days. He was
Mary's godf