"He asked me," said Ethel.

"And how did he bear it?"

Ethel told, and the tears filled her father's eyes.

"It was wrong and cruel in me to bring him home unprepared! and then to leave it to you. I always forget other people's feelings. Poor Spencer!

And now, Ethel, you see what manner of man we have here, and how we ought to treat him."

"Indeed I do!"

"The most unselfish--the most self-sacrificing--" continued Dr. May.

"And to see what it all turned on! I happened to have this place open to me--the very cause, perhaps, of my having taken things easy--and so the old Professor threw opportunities in my way; while Aubrey Spencer, with every recommendation that man could have, was set aside, and exiled himself, leaving the station, and all he might so easily have gained.

Ah, Ethel, Sir Matthew Fleet never came near him in ability. But not one word to interfere with me would he say, and--how I have longed to meet him again, after parting in my selfish, unfeeling gladness; and now I have nothing to do for him, but show him how little I was to be trusted with her."

Ethel never knew how to deal with these occasional bursts of grief, but she said that she thought Dr. Spencer was very much pleased to have met with him, and delighted with the children.

"Ah! well, you are her children," said Dr. May, with his hand on Ethel's shoulder.

So they went downstairs, and found Mary making tea; and Margaret, fearing Dr. Spencer was overwhelmed with his young admirers--for Aubrey and Gertrude were one on each knee, and Blanche standing beside him, inflicting on him a catalogue of the names and ages of all the eleven.

"Ethel has introduced you, I see," said Dr. May.

"Ay, I assure you, it was an alarming introduction. No sooner do I enter your garden, than I hear that I am in the midst of the Forty Thieves.

I find a young lady putting the world to death, after the fashion of Hamlet--and, looking about to find what I have lost, I find this urchin has robbed me of my name--a property I supposed was always left to unfortunate travellers, however small they might be chopped themselves."

"Well, Aubrey boy, will you make restitution?"

"It is my name," said Aubrey positively; for, as his father added, "He is not without dread of the threat being fulfilled, and himself left to be that Anon who, Blanche says, writes so much poetry."

Aubrey privately went to Ethel, to ask her if this were possible; and she had to reassure him, by telling him that they were "only in fun."

It was fun with a much deeper current though; for Dr. Spencer was saying, with a smile, between gratification and sadness, "I did not think my name would have been remembered here so long."

"We had used up mine, and the grandfathers', and the uncles', and began to think we might look a little further a-field," said Dr. May. "If I had only known where you were, I would have asked you to be the varlet's godfather; but I was much afraid you were nowhere in the land of the living."

"I have but one godson, and he is coffee-coloured! I ought to have written; but, you see, for seven years I thought I was coming home."

Aubrey had recovered sufficiently to observe to Blanche, "That was almost as bad as Ulysses," which, being overheard and repeated, led to the information that he was Ethel's pupil, whereupon Dr. Spencer began to inquire after the school, and to exclaim at his friend for having deserted it in the person of Tom. Dr. May looked convicted, but said it was all Norman's fault; and Dr. Spencer, shaking his head at Blanche, opined that the young gentleman was a great innovater, and that he was sure he was at the bottom of the pulling down the Market Cross, and the stopping up Randall's Alley--iniquities of the "nasty people," of which she already had made him aware.

"Poor Norman, he suffered enough anent Randall's Alley," said Dr. May; "but as to the Market Cross, that came down a year before he was born."

"It was the Town Council!" said Ethel.

"One of the ordinary stultifications of Town Councils?"

"Take care, Spencer," said Dr. May. "I am a Town Council man my-self--"

"You, Dick!" and he turned with a start of astonishment, and went into a fit of laughing, re-echoed by all the young ones, who were especially tickled by hearing, from another, the abbreviation that had, hitherto, only lived in the favourite expletive, "As sure as my name is Dick May."

"Of course," said Dr. May. "'Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? One that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him!'"

His friend laughed the more, and they betook themselves to the College stories, of which the quotation from Dogberry seemed to have reminded them.

There was something curious and affecting in their manner to each other.

Often it was the easy bantering familiarity of the two youths they had once been together, with somewhat of elder brotherhood on Dr. Spencer's side--and of looking up on Dr. May's--and just as they had recurred to these terms, some allusion would bring back to Dr. Spencer, that the heedless, high-spirited "Dick," whom he had always had much ado to keep out of scrapes, was a householder, a man of weight and influence; a light which would at first strike him as most ludicrous, and then mirth would end in a sigh, for there was yet another aspect! After having thought of him so long as the happy husband of Margaret Mackenzie, he found her place vacant, and the trace of deep grief apparent on the countenance, once so gay--the oppression of anxiety marked on the brow, formerly so joyous, the merriment almost more touching than gravity would have been, for the former nature seemed rather shattered than altered. In merging towards this side, there was a tender respect in Dr. Spencer's manner that was most beautiful, though this evening such subjects were scrupulously kept at the utmost distance, by the constant interchange of new and old jokes and stories.

Only when bed-time had come, and Margaret had been carried off--did a silence fall on the two friends, unbroken till Dr. May rose and proposed going upstairs. When he gave his hand to wish good-night, Dr. Spencer held it this time most carefully, and said, "Oh, May! I did not expect this!"

"I should have prepared you," said his host, "but I never recollected that you knew nothing--"

"I had dwelt on your happiness!"

"There never were two happier creatures for twenty-two years," said Dr.

May, his voice low with emotion. "Sorrow spared her! Yes, think of her always in undimmed brightness--always smiling as you remember her. She was happy. She is," he concluded. His friend had turned aside and hidden his face with his hands, then looked up for a moment, "And you, Dick,"

he said briefly.

"Sorrow spared her," was Dr. May's first answer. "And hers are very good children!"

There was a silence again, ending in Dr. May's saying, "What do you think of my poor girl?"

They discussed the nature of the injury: Dr. Spencer could not feel otherwise than that it was a very hopeless matter. Her father owned that he had thought so from the first, and had wondered at Sir Matthew Fleet's opinion. His subdued tone of patience and resignation, struck his guest above all, as changed from what he had once been.

"You have been sorely tried," he said, when they parted at his room door.

"I have received much good!" simply answered Dr. May. "Goodnight! I am glad to have you here--if you can bear it."

"Bear it? Dick! how like that girl is to you! She is yourself!"

"Such a self as I never was! Good-night."

Ethel overcame the difficulty of giving the account of the newspaper alarm with tolerable success, by putting the story of Meta's conversation foremost. Margaret did not take it to heart as much as she had feared, nor did she appear to dwell on it afterwards. The truth was perhaps that Dr. Spencer's visit was to every one more of an excitement and amusement than it was to Ethel. Not that she did not like him extremely, but after such a week as she had been spending, the home-world seemed rather stale and unprofitable.

Miss Bracy relapsed into a state of "feelings," imagining that Ethel had distrusted her capabilities, and therefore returned; or as Ethel herself sometimes feared, there might be irritability in her own manner that gave cause of annoyance. The children were inclined to be riotous with their new friend, who made much of them continually, and especially patronised Aubrey; Mary was proud of showing how much she had learned to do for Margaret in her sister's absence; Dr. May was so much taken up with his friend, that Ethel saw less of him than usual, and she began to believe that it had been all a mistake that every one was so dependent on her, for, in fact, they did much better without her.

Meantime, she heard of the gaieties which the others were enjoying, and she could not feel heroic when they regretted her. At the end of a week, Meta Rivers was escorted home from Warwick by two servants, and came to Stoneborough, giving a lively description of all the concluding pleasures, but declaring that Ethel's departure had taken away the zest of the whole, and Mr. Ogilvie had been very disconsolate. Margaret had not been prepared to hear that Mr. Ogilvie had been so constant a companion, and was struck by finding that Ethel had passed over one who had evidently been so great an ingredient in the delights of the expedition. Meta had, however observed nothing--she was a great deal too simple and too much engrossed for such notions to have crossed her mind; but Margaret inferred something, and hoped to learn more when she should see Flora. This would not be immediately. George and his wife were gone to London, and thence intended to pay a round of visits; and Norman had accompanied his namesake to Glenbracken.

Ethel fought hard with her own petulance and sense of tedium at home, which was, as she felt, particularly uncalled for at present; when Dr.

Spencer was enlivening them so much. He was never in the way, he was always either busy in the dining-room in the morning with books and papers, or wandering about his old school-boy haunts in the town, or taking Adam's place, and driving out Dr. May, or sometimes joining the children in a walk, to their supreme delight. His sketches, for he drew most beautifully, were an endless pleasure to Margaret, with his explanations of them--she even tried to sit up to copy them, and he began to teach Blanche to draw. The evenings, when there was certain to be some entertaining talk going on between the two doctors, were very charming, and Margaret seemed quite revived by seeing her father so happy with his friend. Ethel knew she ought to be happy also, and if attention could make her so, she had it, for kind and courteous as Dr.

Spencer was to all, she seemed to have a double charm for him. It was as if he found united in her the quaint brusquerie, that he had loved in her father, with somewhat of her mother; for though Ethel had less personal resemblance to Mrs. May than any other of the family, Dr.

Spencer transferred to her much of the chivalrous distant devotion, with which he had regarded her mother. Ethel was very little conscious of it, but he was certainly her sworn knight, and there was an eagerness in his manner of performing every little service for her, a deference in his way of listening to her, over and above his ordinary polish of manner.

Ethel lighted up, and enjoyed herself when talking was going on--her periods of ennui were when she had to set about any home employment--when Aubrey's lessons did not go well--when she wanted to speak to her father, and could not catch him; and even when she had to go to Cocksmoor.

She did not seem to make any progress there--the room was very full, and very close, the children were dull, and she began to believe she was doing no good--it was all a weariness. But she was so heartily ashamed of her feelings, that she worked the more vehemently for them, and the utmost show that they outwardly made was, that Margaret thought her less vivacious than her wont, and she was a little too peremptory at times with Mary and Blanche. She had so much disliked the display that Flora had made about Cocksmoor, that she had imposed total silence on it upon her younger sisters, and Dr. Spencer had spent a fortnight at Stoneborough without being aware of their occupation; when there occurred such an extremely sultry day, that Margaret remonstrated with Ethel on her intention of broiling herself and Mary by walking to Cocksmoor, when the quicksilver stood at 80 in the shade.

Ethel was much inclined to stay at home, but she did not know whether this was from heat or from idleness, and her fretted spirits took the turn of determination--so she posted off at a galloping pace, that her brothers called her "Cocksmoor speed," and Mary panted by her side, humbly petitioning for the plantation path, when she answered "that it was as well to be hot in the sun as in the shade."

The school-room was unusually full, all the haymaking mothers made it serve as an infant school, and though as much window was opened as there could be, the effect was not coolness. Nevertheless, Ethel sat down and gathered her class round her, and she had just heard the chapter once read, when there was a little confusion, a frightened cry of "Ethel!"