"I could not help saying thank you," she said.

"Mr. May, sir!" cried Jennings, almost crying, and looking round for Harry, as a sort of protector--"tell them, sir, please, it was only my duty--I could not do no less, and you knows it, sir," as if Harry had been making an accusation against him.

"We know you could not," said Margaret, "and that is what we would thank you for, if we could. I know he--Mr. Ernescliffe--must have been much more at rest for leaving my brother with so kind a friend, and--"

"Please, miss, don't say no more about it. Mr. Ernescliffe was as fine an officer as ever stepped a quarter-deck, and Mr. May here won't fall short of him; and was I to be after leaving the like of them to the mercy of the black fellows--that was not so bad neither? If it had only pleased God that we had brought them both back to you, miss; but, you see, a man can't be everything at once, and Mr. Ernescliffe was not so stout as his heart."

"You did everything, we know--" began Dr. May.

"'Twas a real pleasure," said Jennings hastily, "for two such real gentlemen as they was. Mr. May, sir, I beg your pardon if I say it to your face, never flinched, nor spoke a word of complaint, through it all; and, as to the other--"

"Margaret cannot bear this," said Richard, coming near. "It is too much."

The sailor shook his head, and was retreating, but Margaret signed him to come near again, and grasped his hand. Harry followed him out of the room, to arrange their journey, and presently returned.

"He says he is glad he has seen Margaret; he says she is the right sort of stuff for Mr. Ernescliffe."

Harry had not intended Margaret to hear, but she caught the words, smiled radiantly, and whispered, "I wish I may be!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Margaret had borne the meeting much too well for her own good, and a wakeful night of palpitation was the consequence; but she would not allow any one to take it to heart, and declared that she should be ready to enjoy Harry by the time he should return, and meantime, she should dwell on the delight of his meeting Flora.

No one had rested too soundly that night, and Dr. May had not been able to help looking in at his sleeping boy at five in the morning, to certify himself that he had not only figured his present bliss to himself, in his ten minutes' dream. And looking in again at half-past seven, he found Harry half dressed, with his arm round Mary; laughing, almost sobbing, over the treasures in his cupboard, which he had newly discovered in their fresh order.

Dr. May looked like a new man that morning, with his brightened eye and bearing, as if there were a well-spring of joy within him, ready to brim over at once in tear and in smile, and finding an outlet in the praise and thanksgiving that his spirit chanted, and his face expressed, and in that sunny genial benevolence that must make all share his joy.

He was going to run over half the town--every one would like to hear it from him; Ethel and Mary must go to the rest--the old women in the almshouses, where lived an old cook who used to be fond of Harry--they should have a feast; all who were well enough in the hospital should have a tea-drinking; Dr. Hoxton had already granted a holiday to the school; every boy with whom they had any connection should come to dinner, and Edward Anderson should be asked to meet Harry on his return, because, poor fellow, he was so improved.

Dr. May was in such a transport of kind-hearted schemes, that he was not easily made to hear that Harry had not a sixpence wherewith to reach London.

Ethel, meanwhile, was standing beside her brother tendering to him some gold, as his last quarter.

"How did you get it, Ethel? do you keep the purse?"

"No, but papa took Cocksmoor in your stead, when--"

"Nonsense, Ethel," said Harry; "I don't want it. Have I not all my pay and allowance for the whole time I was dead? And as to robbing Cocksmoor--"

"Yes, keep it, Ethel," said her father; "do you think I would take it now, when if there were a thank-offering in the world.--And, by the bye, your Cocksmoor children must have something to remember this by--"

Every one could have envied Norman, for travelling to London with Harry, but that he must proceed to Oxford in two days, when Harry would return to them. The station-master, thinking he could not do enough for the returned mariner, put the two brothers into the coupe, as if they had been a bridal couple, and they were very glad of the privacy, having, as yet, hardly spoken to each other, when Harry's attention was dispersed among so many.

Norman asked many questions about the mission work in the southern hemisphere, and ended by telling his brother of his design, which met with Harry's hearty approbation.

"That's right, old June. There's nothing they want so much, as such as you. How glad my aunt will be! Perhaps you will see David! Oh, if you were to go out to the Loyalty group!"

"Very possibly I might," said Norman.

"Tell them you are my brother, and how they will receive you! I can see the mop-heads they will dress in honour of you, and what a feast of pork and yams you will have to eat! But there is plenty of work among the Maoris for you--they want a clergyman terribly at the next village to my uncle's place. I say, Norman, it will go hard if I don't get a ship bound for the Pacific, and come and see you."

"I shall reckon on you. That is, if I have not to stay to help my father."

"To be sure," exclaimed Harry; "I thought you would have stayed at home, and married little Miss Rivers!"

Thus broadly and boyishly did he plunge into that most tender subject, making his brother start and wince, as if he had touched a wound.

"Nonsense!" he cried, almost angrily.

"Well! you used to seem very much smitten, but so, to be sure, were some of the Alcestes with the young ladies at Valparaiso. How we used to roast Owen about that Spanish Donna, and he was as bad at Sydney about the young lady whose father, we told him, was a convict, though he kept such a swell carriage. He had no peace about his father-in-law, the house-breaker! Don't I remember how you pinched her hand the night you were righted!"

"You know nothing about it," said Norman shortly. "She is far beyond my reach."

"A fine lady? Ha! Well, I should have thought you as good as Flora any day," said Harry indignantly.

"She is what she always was," said Norman, anxious to silence him; "but it is unreasonable to think of it. She is all but engaged to Sir Henry Walkinghame."

"Walkinghame!" cried the volatile sailor. "I have half a mind to send in my name to Flora as Miss Walkinghame!" and he laughed heartily over that adventure, ending, however, with a sigh, as he said, "It had nearly cost me a great deal! But tell me, Norman, how has that Meta, as they called her, turned out? I never saw anything prettier or nicer than she was that day of the Roman encampment, and I should be sorry if that fine fashionable aunt of hers, had made her stuck-up and disdainful."

"No such thing," said Norman.

"Ha!" said Harry to himself, "I see how it is! She has gone and made poor old June unhappy, with her scornful airs--a little impertinent puss!--I wonder Flora does not teach her better manners."

Norman, meanwhile, as the train sped over roofs, and among chimneys, was reproaching himself for running into the fascination of her presence, and then recollecting that her situation, as well as his destiny, both guaranteed that they could meet only as friendly connections.

No carriage awaited them at the station, which surprised Norman, till he recollected that the horses had probably been out all day, and it was eight o'clock. Going to Park Lane in a cab, the brothers were further surprised to find themselves evidently not expected. The butler came to speak to them, saying that Mr. and Mrs. Rivers were gone out to dinner, but would return, probably, at about eleven o'clock. He conducted them upstairs, Harry following his brother, in towering vexation and disappointment, trying to make him turn to hear that they would go directly--home--to Eton--anywhere--why would he go in at all?

The door was opened, Mr. May was announced, and they were in a silk-lined boudoir, where a little slender figure in black started up, and came forward with outstretched hand.

"Norman!" she cried, "how are you? Are you come on your way to Oxford?"

"Has not Flora had Mary's letter?"

"Yes, she said she had one. She was keeping it till she had time to read it."

As she spoke, Meta had given her hand to Harry, as it was evidently expected; she raised her eyes to his face, and said, smiling' and blushing, "I am sure I ought to know you, but I am afraid I don't."

"Look again," said Norman. "See if you have ever seen him before."

Laughing, glancing, and casting down her eyes, she raised them with a sudden start of joy, but colouring more deeply, said, "Indeed, I cannot remember. I dare say I ought."

"I think you see a likeness," said Norman.