“I tell you, Ethel, you know nothing about it. I have not got up half what I meant to have done. Here, do take this book—try me whether I know this properly.”
So they went on, Ethel doing her best to help and encourage, and Norman in an excited state of restless despair, which drove away half his senses and recollection, and his ideas of the superior powers of public schoolboys magnifying every moment. They were summoned downstairs to prayers, but went up again at once, and more than an hour subsequently, when their father paid one of his domiciliary visits, there they still were, with their Latin and Greek spread out, Norman trying to strengthen all doubtful points, but in a desperate desultory manner, that only confused him more and more, till he was obliged to lay his head down on the table, shut his eyes, and run his fingers through his hair, before he could recollect the simplest matter; his renderings alternated with groans, and, cold as was the room, his cheeks and brow were flushed and burning.
The doctor checked all this, by saying, gravely and sternly, “This is not right, Norman. Where are all your resolutions?”
“I shall never do it. I ought never to have thought of it! I shall never succeed!”
“What if you do not?” said Dr. May, laying his hand on his shoulder.
“What? why, Tom’s chance lost—you will all be mortified,” said Norman, hesitating in some confusion.
“I will take care of Tom,” said Dr. May.
“And he will have been foiled!” said Ethel
“If he is?”
The boy and girl were both silent.