"Oh, papa, you won't!"

"I don't know but that I ought; but yet, the fact is, that I cannot.

With that fine young fellow so generously, fondly attached I cannot find it in my heart to send him away for four years without seeing her, and yet, poor things, it might be better for them both. Oh, Ethel, if your mother were but here!"

He rested his forehead on his hands, and Ethel stood aghast at his unexpected reception of the addresses for which she had so long hoped.

She did not venture to speak, and presently he roused himself as the dinner-bell rang. "One comfort is," he said, "that Margaret has more composure than I. Do you go to Cocksmoor this afternoon?"

"I wished it."

"Take them all with you. You may tell them why when you are out. I must have the house quiet. I shall get Margaret out into the shade, and prepare her, as best I can, before he comes at three o'clock."

It was not flattering to be thus cleared out of the way, especially when full of excited curiosity, but any such sensation was quite overborne by sympathy in his great anxiety, and Ethel's only question was, "Had not Flora better stay to keep off company?"

"No, no," said Dr. May impatiently, "the fewer the better;" and hastily passing her, he dashed up to his room, nearly running over the nursery procession, and, in a very few seconds, was seated at table, eating and speaking by snatches, and swallowing endless draughts of cold water.

"You are going to Cocksmoor!" said he, as they were finishing.

"It is the right day," said Richard. "Are you coming, Flora?"

"Not to-day, I have to call on Mrs. Hoxton."

"Never mind Mrs. Hoxton," said the doctor; "you had better go to-day, a fine cool day for a walk."

He did not look as if he had found it so.

"Oh, yes, Flora, you must come," said Ethel, "we want you."

"I have engagements at home," replied Flora.

"And it really is a trying walk," said Miss Winter.

"You must," reiterated Ethel. "Come to our room, and I will tell you why."

"I do not mean to go to Cocksmoor till something positive is settled. I cannot have anything to do with that woman."

"If you would only come upstairs," implored Ethel, at the door, "I have something to tell you alone."

"I shall come up in due time. I thought you had outgrown closetings and foolish secrets," said Flora.

Her movements were quickened, however, by her father, who, finding her with Margaret in the drawing-room, ordered her upstairs in a peremptory manner, which she resented, as treating her like a child, and therefore proceeded in no amiable mood to the room, where Ethel awaited her in wild tumultuous impatience.

"Well, Ethel, what is this grand secret?"

"Oh, Flora! Mr. Ernescliffe is at the Swan! He has been speaking to papa about Margaret."

"Proposing for her, do you mean?" said Flora.

"Yes, he is coming to see her this afternoon, and that is the reason that papa wants us to be all out of the way."

"Did papa tell you this?"

"Yes," said Ethel, beginning to perceive the secret of her displeasure, "but only because I was the first person he met; and Norman guessed it long ago. Do put on your things! I'll tell you all I know when we are out. Papa is so anxious to have the coast clear."

"I understand," said Flora; "but I shall not go with you. Do not be afraid of my interfering with any one. I shall sit here."

"But papa said you were to go."

"If he had done me the favour of speaking to me himself," said Flora, "I should have shown him that it is not right that Margaret should be left without any one at hand in case she should be overcome. He is of no use in such cases, only makes things worse. I should not feel justified in leaving Margaret with no one else, but he is in one of those hand-over-head moods, when it is not of the least use to say a word to him."

"Flora, how can you, when he expressly ordered you?"

"All he meant was, do not be in the way, and I shall not show myself unless I am needed, when he would be glad enough of me. I am not bound to obey the very letter, like Blanche or Mary."

Ethel looked horrified by the assertion of independence, but Richard called her from below, and, with one more fruitless entreaty, she ran downstairs.

Richard had been hearing all from his father, and it was comfortable to talk the matter over with him, and hear explained the anxiety which frightened her, while she scarcely comprehended it; how Dr. May could not feel certain whether it was right or expedient to promote an engagement which must depend on health so uncertain as poor Margaret's, and how he dreaded the effect on the happiness of both.

Ethel's romance seemed to be turning to melancholy, and she walked on gravely and thoughtfully, though repeating that there could be no doubt of Margaret's perfect recovery by the time of the return from the voyage.

Her lessons were somewhat nervous and flurried, and even the sight of two very nice neat new scholars, of very different appearance from the rest, and of much superior attainments, only half interested her. Mary was enchanted at them as a pair of prodigies, actually able to read! and had made out their names, and their former abodes, and how they had been used to go to school, and had just come to live in the cottage deserted by the lamented Una.

Ethel thought it quite provoking in her brother to accede to Mary's entreaties that they should go and call on this promising importation.

Even the children's information that they were taught now by "Sister Cherry" failed to attract her; but Richard looked at his watch, and decided that it was too soon to go home, and she had to submit to her fate.

Very different was the aspect of the house from the wild Irish cabin appearance that it had in the M'Carthy days. It was the remains of an old farm-house that had seen better days, somewhat larger than the general run of the Cocksmoor dwellings. Respectable furniture had taken up its abode against the walls, the kitchen was well arranged, and, in spite of the wretched flooring and broken windows, had an air of comfort. A very tidy woman was bustling about, still trying to get rid of the relics of her former tenants, who might, she much feared, have left a legacy of typhus fever. The more interesting person was, however, a young woman of three or four and twenty, pale, and very lame, and with the air of a respectable servant, her manners particularly pleasing.

It appeared that she was the daughter of a first wife, and, after the period of schooling, had been at service, but had been lamed by a fall downstairs, and had been obliged to come home, just as scarcity of work had caused her father to leave his native parish, and seek employment at other quarries. She had hoped to obtain plain work, but all the family were dismayed and disappointed at the wild spot to which they had come, and anxiously availed themselves of this introduction to beg that the elder boy and girl might be admitted into the town school, distant as it was. At another time, the thought of Charity Elwood would have engrossed Ethel's whole mind, now she could hardly attend, and kept looking eagerly at Richard as he talked endlessly with the good mother. When, at last, they did set off, he would not let her gallop home like a steam-engine, but made her take his arm, when he found that she could not otherwise moderate her steps. At the long hill a figure appeared, and, as soon as Richard was certified of its identity, he let her fly, like a bolt from a crossbow, and she stood by Dr. May's side.

A little ashamed, she blushed instead of speaking, and waited for Richard to come up and begin. Neither did he say anything, and they paused till, the silence disturbing her, she ventured a "Well, papa!"

"Well, poor things. She was quite overcome when first I told her--said it would be hard on him, and begged me to tell him that he would be much happier if he thought no more of her."

"Did Margaret?" cried Ethel. "Oh! could she mean it?"

"She thought she meant it, poor dear, and repeated such things again and again; but when I asked whether I should send him away without seeing her, she cried more than ever, and said, 'You are tempting me! It would be selfishness.'"

"Oh, dear! she surely has seen him!"

"I told her that I would be the last person to wish to tempt her to selfishness, but that I did not think that either could be easy in settling such a matter through a third person."

"It would have been very unkind," said Ethel; "I wonder she did not think so."

"She did at last. I saw it could not be otherwise, and she said, poor darling, that when he had seen her, he would know the impossibility; but she was so agitated that I did not know how it could be."

"Has she?"

"Ay, I told him not to stay too long, and left him under the tulip-tree with her. I found her much more composed--he was so gentle and considerate. Ah! he is the very man! Besides, he has convinced her now that affection brings him, not mere generosity, as she fancied."

"Oh, then it is settled!" cried Ethel joyously.