oh! to have these
janglings once a week, and to see no end to them!"

"Once a week?"

"It is really as often, or more often," said Ethel. "If any of us
criticise anything the girls have done, if there is a change in any
arrangement, if she thinks herself neglected--I can't tell you what
little matters suffice; she will catch me, and argue with me, till--oh,
till we are both half dead, and yet cannot stop ourselves."

"Why do you argue?"

"If I could only help it!"

"Bad management," said the doctor, in a low, musing tone. "You want a
head!" and he sighed.

"Oh, papa, I did not mean to distress you. I would not have told you if
I had remembered--but I am worried to-day, and off my guard--"

"Ethel, I thought you were the one on whom I could depend for bearing
everything."

"These were such nonsense!"

"What may seem nonsense to you is not the same to her. You must
be forbearing, Ethel. Remember that dependence is prone to morbid
sensitiveness, especially in those who have a humble estimate of
themselves."

"It seems to me that touchiness is more pride than humility," said
Ethel, whose temper, already not in the smoothest state, found it hard
that, after having long borne patiently with these constant arguments,
she should find Miss Bracy made the chief object of compassion.

Dr. May's chivalrous feeling caused him to take the part of the weak,
and he answered, "You know nothing about it. Among our own kith and kin
we can afford to pass over slights, because we are sure the heart is
right--we do not know what it is to be among strangers, uncertain of
any claim to their esteem or kindness. Sad! sad!" he continued, as the
picture wrought on him. "Each trifle seems a token one way or the other!
I am very sorry I grieved the poor thing yesterday. I must go and tell
her so at once."

He put Ethel aside, and knocked at the schoolroom door, while Ethel
stood, mortified. "He thinks I have been neglecting, or speaking harshly
to her! For fifty times that I have borne with her maundering, I have,
at last, once told her the truth; and for that I am accused of want of
forbearance! Now he will go and make much of her, and pity her, till she
will think herself an injured heroine, and be worse than ever; and he
will do away with all the good of my advice, and want me to ask her
pardon for it--but that I never will. It was only the truth, and I will
stick to it."

"Ethel!" cried Mary, running up to her, then slackening