ing things well, as you were trying to do last autumn."

"You are not thinking of my not going to Cocksmoor?" cried Ethel
vehemently.

"I want you to consider what is to be done, dear Ethel. You thought,
last autumn, a great deal of curing your careless habits, now you seem
not to have time to attend. You can do a great deal very fast, I know,
but isn't it a pity to be always in a hurry?"

"It isn't Cocksmoor that is the reason," said Ethel.

"No; you did pretty well when you began, but you know that was in the
holidays, when you had no Latin and Greek to do."

"Oh, but, Margaret, they won't take so much time when I have once got
over the difficulties, and see my way, but just now they have put Norman
into such a frightfully difficult play, that I can hardly get on at all
with it, and there's a new kind of Greek verses, too, and I don't make
out from the book how to manage them. Norman showed me on Saturday, but
mine won't be right. When I've got over that, I shan't be so hurried."

"But Norman will go on to something harder, I suppose."

"I dare say I shall be able to do it."

"Perhaps you might, but I want you to consider if you are not working
beyond what can be good for anybody. You see Norman is much cleverer
than most boys, and you are a year younger; and besides doing all his
work at the head of the school, his whole business of the day, you have
Cocksmoor to attend to, and your own lessons, besides reading all the
books that come into the house. Now isn't that more than is reasonable
to expect any head and hands to do properly?"

"But if I can do it?"

"But can you, dear Ethel? Aren't you always racing from one thing to
another, doing them by halves, feeling hunted, and then growing vexed?"

"I know I have been cross lately," said Ethel, "but it's the being so
bothered."

"And why are you bothered? Isn't it that you undertake too much?"

"What would you have me do?" said Ethel, in an injured, unconvinced
voice. "Not give up my children?"

"No," said Margaret; "but don't think me very unkind if I say, suppose
you left off trying to keep up with Norman."

"Oh, Margaret! Margaret!" and her eyes filled with tears. "We have
hardly missed doing the same every day since the first Latin grammar was
put into his hands!"

"I know it would be very hard," said Margaret; but Ethel continued, in a
piteous tone, a little sentimental, "From hie haec hoc up to Alcaics and
beta Thukididou we have gone on togeth