right. At
the first pause in the conversation, the gentlemen turned to the young
ladies. Mr. Rivers began talking to Flora, and Dr. May, after a few
pleasant words to Meta, went back to Ethel. He wanted her to see
his favourite pictures--he led her up to them, made her put on his
spectacles to see them better, and showed her their special merits. Mr.
Rivers and the others joined them; Ethel said little, except a remark
or two in answer to her papa, but she was very happy--she felt that he
liked to have her with him; and Meta, too, was struck by the soundness
of her few sayings, and the participation there seemed to be in all
things between the father and daughter.

At dinner Ethel went on pretty well. She was next to her father, and was
very glad to find the dinner so grand, that no side-dish fell to her lot
to be carved. There was a great deal of pleasant talk, such as the girls
could understand, though they did not join much in it, except that now
and then Dr. May turned to Ethel as a reference for names and dates. To
make up for silence at dinner, there was a most confidential chatter in
the drawing-room. Flora and Meta on one side, hand in hand, calling each
other by their Christian names, Mrs. Larpent and Ethel on the other.
Flora dreaded only that Ethel was talking too much, and revealing too
much in how different style they lived. Then came the gentlemen, Dr. May
begging Mr. Rivers to show Ethel one of his prints, when Ethel stooped
more than ever, as if her eyelashes were feelers, but she was in
transports of delight, and her embarrassment entirely at an end in her
admiration, as she exclaimed and discussed with her papa, and by her
hearty appreciation made Mr. Rivers for the time forget her plainness.
Music followed; Flora played nicely, Meta like a well-taught girl; Ethel
went on musing over the engravings. The carriage was announced, and
so ended the day in Norman's fairy-land. Ethel went home, leaning hard
against her papa, talking to him of Raphael's Madonnas; and looking out
at the stars, and thinking how the heavenly beauty of those faces that,
in the prints she had been turning over, seemed to be connected with the
glories of the dark-blue sky and glowing stars. "As one star differeth
from another star in glory," murmured she; "that was the lesson to-day,
papa;" and when she felt him press her hand, she knew he was thinking of
that last time she had heard the lesson, when he had not been with her,
and he