“I should think that would be a great pity,” said Margaret. “If you were to give up the verse-making, and the trying to do as much as Norman, and fix some time in the day—half an hour, perhaps—for your Greek, I think it might do very well.”
“Thank you,” said Ethel, much relieved; “I’m glad you don’t want me to leave it all off. I hope Norman won’t be vexed,” she added, looking a little melancholy.
But Norman had not by any means the sort of sentiment on the subject that she had. “Of course, you know, Ethel,” said he, “it must have come to this some time or other, and if you find those verses too hard, and that they take up too much of your time, you had better give them up.”
Ethel did not like anything to be said to be too hard for her, and was very near pleading she only wanted time, but some recollection came across her, and presently she said, “I suppose it is a wrong sort of ambition to want to learn more, in one’s own way, when one is told it is not good for one. I was just going to say I hated being a woman, and having these tiresome little trifles—my duty—instead of learning, which is yours, Norman.”
“I’m glad you did not,” said Norman, “for it would have been very silly of you; and I assure you, Ethel, it is really time for you to stop, or you would get into a regular learned lady, and be good for nothing. I don’t mean that knowing more than other people would make you so, but minding nothing else would.”
This argument from Norman himself did much to reconcile Ethel’s mind to the sacrifice she had made; and when she went to bed, she tried to work out the question in her own mind, whether her eagerness for classical learning was a wrong sort of ambition, to know what other girls did not, and whether it was right to crave for more knowledge than was thought advisable for her. She only bewildered herself, and went to sleep before she had settled anything, but that she knew she must make all give way to papa first, and, secondly, to Cocksmoor.
Meanwhile Margaret had told her father all that had passed. He was only surprised to hear that Ethel had kept up so long with Norman, and thought that it was quite right that she should not undertake so much, agreeing more entirely than Margaret had expected with Miss Winter’s view, that it would be hurtful to body as well as mind.
“It is perfectly ridiculous to think of her attempting it!” he said. “I am glad you have put a stop to it.”
“I am glad I have,” said Margaret; “and dear Ethel behaved so very well. If she had resisted, it would have puzzled me very much, I must have asked you to settle it. But it is very odd, papa, Ethel is the one of them all who treats me most as if I had real authority over her; she lets me scold her, asks my leave, never seems to recollect for a moment how little older I am, and how much cleverer she is. I am sure I never should have submitted so readily. And that always makes it more difficult to me to direct her; I don’t like to take upon me with her, because it seems wrong to have her obeying me as if she were a mere child.”
“She is a fine creature,” said Dr. May emphatically. “It just shows the fact, the higher the mind the readier the submission. But you don’t mean that you have any difficulty with the others?”