"A startling announcement!" said Dr. Spencer, looking at Ethel, and the next two steps brought them in view of the play-place in the laurels, where Aubrey lay on the ground, feigning sleep, but keeping a watchful eye over Blanche, who was dropping something into the holes of inverted flower-pots, Gertrude dancing about in a way that seemed to have called for the reproof of the more earnest actors.

"Ethel! Ethel!" screamed the children, with one voice, and, while the two girls stood in shyness at her companion, Aubrey had made a dart at her neck, and hung upon her, arms, legs, body, and all, like a wild cat.

"That will do! that will do, old man--let go! Speak to Dr. Spencer, my dear."

Blanche did so demurely, and asked where was papa?

"Coming, as soon as he has been to Mrs. Larkins's poor baby."

"George Larkins has been here," said Aubrey. "And I have finished 'Vipera et lima', Ethel, but Margaret makes such false quantities!"

"What is your name, youngster?" said Dr. Spencer, laying his hand on Aubrey's head.

"Aubrey Spencer May," was the answer.

"Hey day! where did you steal my name?" exclaimed Dr. Spencer, while Aubrey stood abashed at so mysterious an accusation.

"Oh!" exclaimed Blanche, seizing on Ethel, and whispering, "is it really the boy that climbed the market cross?"

"You see your fame lives here," said Ethel, smiling, as Dr. Spencer evidently heard.

"He was a little boy!" said Aubrey indignantly, looking at the gray-haired man.

"There!" said Ethel to Dr. Spencer.

"The tables turned!" he said, laughing heartily. "But do not let me keep you. You would wish to prepare your sister for a stranger, and I shall improve my acquaintance here. Where are the forty thieves?"

"I am all of them," said the innocent, daisy-faced Gertrude; and Ethel hastened towards the house, glad of the permission granted by his true good-breeding.

There was a shriek of welcome from Mary, who sat working beside Margaret. Ethel was certain that no evil tidings had come to her eldest sister, so joyous was her exclamation of wonder and rebuke to her home-sick Ethel. "Naughty girl! running home at once! I did think you would have been happy there!"

"So I was," said Ethel hastily; "but who do you think I have brought home?" Margaret flushed with such a pink, that Ethel resolved never to set her guessing again, and hurried to explain; and having heard that all was well, and taken her housekeeping measures, she proceeded to fetch the guest; but Mary, who had been unusually silent all this time, ran after her, and checked her.

"Ethel, have you heard?" she said.

"Have you?" said Ethel.

"George Larkins rode in this morning to see when papa would come home, and he told me. He said I had better not tell Margaret, for he did not believe it."

"And you have not! That is very good of you, Mary."

"Oh! I am glad you are come! I could not have helped telling, if you had been away a whole week! But, Ethel, does papa believe it?" Poor Mary's full lip swelled, and her eyes swam, ready to laugh or weep, in full faith in her sister's answer.

Ethel told of Meta's captain, and the smile predominated, and settled down into Mary's usual broad beamy look, like a benignant rising sun on the sign of an inn, as Ethel praised her warmly for a fortitude and consideration of which she had not thought her capable.

Dr. Spencer was discovered full in the midst of the comedy of the forty thieves, alternating, as required, between the robber-captain and the ass, and the children in perfect ecstasies with him.

They all followed in his train to the drawing-room, and were so clamorous, that he could have no conversation with Margaret. He certainly made them so, but Ethel, remembering what a blow her disclosures had been, thought it would be only a kindness to send Aubrey to show him to his room, where he might have some peace.

She was not sorry to be very busy, so as to have little time to reply to the questions on the doings at Oxford, and the cause of her sudden return; and yet it would have been a comfort to be able to sit down to understand herself, and recall her confused thoughts. But solitary reflection was a thing only to be hoped for in that house in bed, and Ethel was obliged to run up and down, and attend to everybody, under an undefined sense that she had come home to a dull, anxious world of turmoil.

Margaret seemed to guess nothing, that was one comfort; she evidently thought that her return was fully accounted for by the fascination of her papa's presence in a strange place. She gave Ethel no credit for the sacrifice, naturally supposing that she could not enjoy herself away from home. Ethel did not know whether to be glad or not; she was relieved, but it was flat. As to Norman Ogilvie, one or two inquiries whether she liked him, and if Norman were going to Scotland with him, were all that passed, and it was very provoking to be made so hot and conscious by them.

She could not begin to dress till late, and while she was unpacking, she heard her father come home, among the children's loud welcomes, and go to the drawing-room. He presently knocked at the door between their rooms.

"So Margaret does not know?" he said.

"No, Mary has been so very good;" and she told what had passed.

"Well done, Mary, I must tell her so. She is a good girl on a pinch, you see!"

"And we don't speak of it now? Or will it hurt Margaret more to think we keep things from her?"

"That is the worst risk of the two. I have seen great harm done in that way. Mention it, but without seeming to make too much of it."

"Won't you, papa?"

"You had better--it will seem of less importance. I think nothing of it myself."

Nevertheless, Ethel saw that he could not trust himself to broach the subject to Margaret.

"How was the Larkins' baby?"

"Doing better. What have you done with Spencer?"

"I put him into Richard's room. The children were eating him up! He is so kind to them."

"Ay! I say, Ethel, that was a happy consequence of your coming home with me."

"What a delightful person he is!"

"Is he not? A true knight errant, as he always was! I could not tell you what I owed to him as a boy--all my life, I may say. Ethel," he added suddenly: "we must do our best to make him happy here. I know it now--I never guessed it then, but one is very hard and selfish when one is happy--"

"What do you mean, papa?"

"I see it now," continued Dr. May incoherently; "the cause of his wandering life--advantages thrown aside. He! the most worthy. Things I little heeded at the time have come back on me! I understand why he banished himself!"

"Why?" asked Ethel bewildered.

"She never had an idea of it; but I might have guessed from what fell from him unconsciously, for not a word would he have said--nor did he say, to show how he sacrificed himself!"

"Who was it? Aunt Flora?" said Ethel, beginning to collect his meaning.

"No, Ethel, it was your own dear mother! You will think this another romantic fancy of mine, but I am sure of it."

"So am I," said Ethel.

"How--what? Ah! I remembered after we parted that he might know nothing--"