“Don’t you wish it?” said Richard, who had many minor arrangements to make, and would have preferred walking home independently.
“No, thank you, I have a headache, and walking may take it off,” said Norman, taking off his hat and passing his fingers through his hair.
“A headache again—I am sorry to hear it.”
“It is only that suffocating den of yours. My head ached from the moment I looked into it. How can you take Ethel into such a hole, Richard? It is enough to kill her to go on with it for ever.”
“It is not so every day,” said the elder brother quietly. “It is a warm day, and there was an unusual crowd.”
“I shall speak to my father,” exclaimed Norman, with somewhat of the supercilious tone that he had now and then been tempted to address to his brother. “It is not fit that Ethel should give up everything, health and all, to such a set as these. They look as if they had been picked out of the gutter—dirt, squalor, everything disgusting, and summer coming on, too, and that horrid place with no window to open! It is utterly unbearable!”
Richard stooped to pick up a heavy basket, then smiled and said, “You must get over such things as these if you mean to be a clergyman, Norman.”
“Whatever I am to be, it does not concern the girls being in such a place as this. I am surprised that you could suffer it.”
There was no answer—Richard was walking off with his basket, and putting it into the carriage. Norman was not pleased with himself, but thought it his duty to let his father know his opinion of Ethel’s weekly resort. All he wished was to avoid Ethel herself, not liking to show her his sentiments, and he was glad to see her put into the gig with Aubrey and Mary.
They rushed into the drawing-room, full of glee, when they came home, all shouting their news together, and had not at first leisure to perceive that Margaret had some tidings for them in return. Mr. Rivers had been there, with a pressing invitation to his daughter’s school-feast, and it had been arranged that Flora and Ethel should go and spend the day at the Grange, and their father come to dine, and fetch them home in the evening. Margaret had been much pleased with the manner in which the thing was done. When Dr. May, who seemed reluctant to accept the proposal that related to himself, was called out of the room, Mr. Rivers had, in a most kind manner, begged her to say whether she thought it would be painful to him, or whether it might do his spirits good. She decidedly gave her opinion in favour of the invitation, Mr. Rivers gained his point, and she had ever since been persuading her father to like the notion, and assuring him it need not be made a precedent for the renewal of invitations to dine out in the town. He thought the change would be pleasant for his girls, and had, therefore, consented.