It was such a damper as to be most mortifying to an enthusiastic girl, and she drew into herself in a moment.

They walked home in silence, and when Richard warned her that she was not keeping her dress out of the dirt, it sounded like a sarcasm on her projects, and, with a slightly pettish manner, she raised the unfortunate skirt, its crape trimmings greatly bespattered with ruddy mud. Then recollecting how mamma would have shaken her head at that very thing, she regretted the temper she had betrayed, and in a larmoyante voice, sighed, "I wish I could pick my way better. Some people have the gift, you have hardly a splash, and I'm up to the ankles in mud."

"It is only taking care," said Richard; "besides your frock is so long, and full. Can't you tuck it up and pin it?"

"My pins always come out," said Ethel, disconsolately, crumpling the black folds into one hand, while she hunted for a pin with the other.

"No wonder, if you stick them in that way," said Richard. "Oh! you'll tear that crape. Here, let me help you. Don't you see, make it go in and out, that way; give it something to pull against."

Ethel laughed. "That's the third thing you have taught me--to thread a needle, tie a bow, and stick in a pin! I never could learn those things of any one else; they show, but don't explain the theory."

They met Dr. May at the entrance of the town, very tired, and saying he had been a long tramp, all over the place, and Mrs. Hoxton had been boring him with her fancies. As he took Richard's arm he gave the long heavy sigh that always fell so painfully on Ethel's ear.

"Dear, dear, dear papa!" thought she, "my work must also be to do all I can to comfort him."

Her reflections were broken off. Dr. May exclaimed, "Ethel, don't make such a figure of yourself. Those muddy ankles and petticoats are not fit to be seen--there, now you are sweeping the pavement. Have you no medium? One would think you had never worn a gown in your life before!"

Poor Ethel stepped on before with mud-encrusted heels, and her father speaking sharply in the weariness and soreness of his heart; her draggle-tailed petticoats weighing down at once her missionary projects at Cocksmoor, and her tender visions of comforting her widowed father; her heart was full to overflowing, and where was the mother to hear her troubles?

She opened the hall door, and would have rushed upstairs, but nurse happened to be crossing the hall. "Miss Ethel! Miss Ethel, you aren't going up with them boots on! I do declare you are just like one of the boys. And your frock!"

Ethel sat submissively down on the lowest step, and pulled off her boots. As she did so, her father and brother came in--the former desiring Richard to come with him to the study, and write a note for him. She hoped that thus she might have Margaret to herself, and hurried into her room. Margaret was alone, maids and children at tea, and Flora dressing. The room was in twilight, with the red gleam of the fire playing cheerfully over it.

"Well, Ethel, have you had a pleasant walk?"

"Yes--no--Oh, Margaret!" and throwing herself across the bottom of the bed, she burst into tears.

"Ethel, dear, what is the matter? Papa--"

"No--no--only I draggled my frock, and Richard threw cold water. And I am good for nothing! Oh! if mamma was but here!"

"Darling Ethel, dear Ethel, I wish I could comfort you. Come a little nearer to me, I can't reach you! Dear Ethel, what has gone wrong?"

"Everything," said Ethel. "No--I'm too dirty to come on your white bed; I forgot, you won't like it," added she, in an injured tone.

"You are wet, you are cold, you are tired," said Margaret. "Stay here and dress, don't go up in the cold. There, sit by the fire pull off your frock and stockings, and we will send for the others. Let me see you look comfortable--there. Now tell me who threw cold water."

"It was figurative cold water," said Ethel, smiling for a moment. "I was only silly enough to tell Richard my plan, and it's horrid to talk to a person who only thinks one high-flying and nonsensical--and then came the dirt."

"But what was the scheme, Ethel?"

"Cocksmoor," said Ethel, proceeding to unfold it.

"I wish we could," said Margaret. "It would be an excellent thing. But how did Richard vex you?"

"I don't know," said Ethel, "only he thought it would not do. Perhaps he said right, but it was coldly, and he smiled."

"He is too sober-minded for our flights," said Margaret. "I know the feeling of it, Ethel dear; but you know if he did see that some of your plans might not answer, it is no reason you should not try to do something at once. You have not told me about the girl."

Ethel proceeded to tell the history. "There!" said Margaret cheerfully, "there are two ways of helping Cocksmoor already. Could you not make some clothes for the two grandchildren? I could help you a little, and then, if they were well clothed, you might get them to come to the Sunday-school. And as to the twins, I wonder what the hire of a cart would be to bring the christening party? It is just what Richard could manage."

"Yes," said Ethel; "but those are only little isolated individual things!"

"But one must make a beginning."

"Then, Margaret, you think it was a real vow? You don't think it silly of me?" said Ethel wistfully.

"Ethel, dear, I don't think dear mamma would say we ought to make vows, except what the church decrees for us. I don't think she would like the notion of your considering yourself pledged; but I do think, that, after all you have said and felt about Cocksmoor, and being led there on that day, it does seem as if we might be intended to make it our especial charge."

"Oh, Margaret, I am glad you say so. You always understand."

"But you know we are so young, that now we have not her to judge for us, we must only do little things that we are quite sure of, or we shall get wrong."

"That's not the way great things were done."

"I don't know, Ethel; I think great things can't be good unless they stand on a sure foundation of little ones."

"Well, I believe Richard was right, and it would not do to begin on Sunday, but he was so tame; and then my frock, and the horrid deficiency in those little neatnesses."

"Perhaps that is good for you in one way; you might get very high-flying if you had not the discipline of those little tiresome things, correcting them will help you, and keep your high things from being all romance. I know dear mamma used to say so; that the trying to conquer them was a help to you. Oh, here's Mary! Mary, will you get Ethel's dressing things? She has come home wet-footed and cold, and has been warming herself by my fire."

Mary was happy to help, and Ethel was dressed and cheered by the time Dr. May came in, for a hurried visit and report of his doings; Flora followed on her way from her room. Then all went to tea, leaving Margaret to have a visit from the little ones under charge of nurse. Two hours' stay with her, that precious time when she knew that sad as the talk often was, it was truly a comfort to him. It ended when ten o'clock struck, and he went down--Margaret hearing the bell, the sounds of the assembling servants, the shutting of the door, the stillness of prayer-time, the opening again, the feet moving off in different directions, then brothers and sisters coming in to kiss her and bid her good-night, nurse and Flora arranging her for the night, Flora coming to sleep in her little bed in the corner of the room, and, lastly, her father's tender good-night, and melancholy look at her, and all was quiet, except the low voices and movements as Richard attended him in his own room.

Margaret could think: "Dear, dear Ethel, how noble and high she is! But I am afraid! It is what people call a difficult, dangerous age, and the grander she is, the greater danger of not managing her rightly. If those high purposes should run only into romance like mine, or grow out into eccentricities and unfemininesses, what a grievous pity it would be! And I, so little older, so much less clever, with just sympathy enough not to be a wise restraint--I am the person who has the responsibility, and oh, what shall I do? Mamma trusted to me to be a mother to them, papa looks to me, and I so unfit, besides this helplessness. But God sent it, and put me in my place. He made me lie here, and will raise me up if it is good, so I trust He will help me with my sisters."

"Grant me to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in Thy holy comfort."

CHAPTER VII.

Something between a hindrance and a help.

WORDSWORTH.

Etheldred awoke long before time for getting up, and lay pondering over her visions. Margaret had sympathised, and therefore they did not seem entirely aerial. To earn money by writing was her favourite plan, and she called her various romances in turn before her memory, to judge which might be brought down to sober pen and ink. She considered till it became not too unreasonably early to get up. It was dark, but there was a little light close to the window: she had no writing-paper, but she would interline her old exercise-book. Down she ran, and crouching in the school-room window-seat, she wrote on in a trance of eager composition, till Norman called her, as he went to school, to help him to find a book.

This done, she went up to visit Margaret, to tell her the story, and consult her. But this was not so easy. She found Margaret with little Daisy lying by her, and Tom sitting by the fire over his Latin.

"Oh, Ethel, good-morning, dear! you are come just in time."

"To take baby?" said Ethel, as the child was fretting a little.

"Yes, thank you, she has been very good, but she was tired of lying here, and I can't move her about," said Margaret.