ernation.

"Oh! he said I was certain, but what is that? We Stoneborough men only
compare ourselves with each other. I shall break down to a certainty,
and my father will be disappointed."

"You will do your best?"

"I don't know that. My best will all go away when it comes to the
point."

"Surely not. It did not go away last time you were examined, and why
should it now?"

"I tell you, Ethel, you know nothing about it. I have not got up half
what I meant to have done. Here, do take this book--try me whether I
know this properly."

So they went on, Ethel doing her best to help and encourage, and Norman
in an excited state of restless despair, which drove away half his
senses and recollection, and his ideas of the superior powers of public
schoolboys magnifying every moment. They were summoned downstairs to
prayers, but went up again at once, and more than an hour subsequently,
when their father paid one of his domiciliary visits, there they still
were, with their Latin and Greek spread out, Norman trying to strengthen
all doubtful points, but in a desperate desultory manner, that only
confused him more and more, till he was obliged to lay his head down on
the table, shut his eyes, and run his fingers through his hair, before
he could recollect the simplest matter; his renderings alternated with
groans, and, cold as was the room, his cheeks and brow were flushed and
burning.

The doctor checked all this, by saying, gravely and sternly, "This is
not right, Norman. Where are all your resolutions?"

"I shall never do it. I ought never to have thought of it! I shall never
succeed!"

"What if you do not?" said Dr. May, laying his hand on his shoulder.

"What? why, Tom's chance lost--you will all be mortified," said Norman,
hesitating in some confusion.

"I will take care of Tom," said Dr. May.

"And he will have been foiled!" said Ethel

"If he is?"

The boy and girl were both silent.

"Are you striving for mere victory's sake, Norman?" continued his
father.

"I thought not," murmured Norman.

"Successful or not, you will have done your utmost for us. You would
not lose one jot of affection or esteem, and Tom shall not suffer. Is it
worth this agony?"

"No, it is foolish," said Norman, with trembling voice, almost as if he
could have burst into tears. He was quite unnerved by the anxiety
and toil with which he had overtasked himself, beyond his father's
knowledge.

"Oh, papa!" pleaded Ethel, who co