“I never meant to show it,” said Ethel.
“You need not mind,” said Meta, smiling. “I was very much surprised myself, and thought it all a mistake. But I am so very glad, for I know it will make such a difference to him, poor fellow. I should like to tell you all about him, for no one else can very well, and you will like him better, perhaps. You know my grandfather made his own fortune, and you would think some of our relations very queer. My Aunt Dorothy once told me all about it—papa was made to marry the partner’s daughter, and I fancy she could not have been much of a lady. I don’t think he could have been very happy with her, but she soon died, and left him with this one son, whom those odd old aunts brought up their own way. By and by, you know, papa came to be in quite another line of society, but when he married again, poor George had been so spoiled by these aunts, and was so big, and old, that my mother did not know what to make of him.”
“A great lubberly boy,” Ethel said, rather repenting the next moment.
“He is thirteen years older than I am,” said Meta, “and you see it has been hard on him altogether; he had not the education that papa would have given him if he had been born later: and he can’t remember his mother, and has always been at a loss when with clever people. I never understood it till within the last two or three years, nor knew how trying it must be to see such a little chit as me made so much of—almost thrusting him aside. But you cannot think what a warm-hearted good fellow he is—he has never been otherwise than so very kind to me, and he was so very fond of his old aunt. Hitherto, he has had such disadvantages, and no real, sensible woman has taken him in hand; he does not care for papa’s tastes, and I am so much younger, that I never could get on with him at all, till this time; but I do know that he has a real good temper, and all sorts of good qualities, and that he only needs to be led right, to go right. Oh! Flora may make anything of him, and we are so thankful to her for having found it out!”
“Thank you for telling me,” said Ethel. “It is much more satisfactory to have no shamming.”
Meta laughed, for Ethel’s sham was not too successful; she continued, “Dear Dr. May, I thought he would think his beautiful Flora not exactly matched—but tell him, Ethel, for if he once is sorry for poor George, he will like him. And it will really be the making of George, to be thrown with him and your brothers. Oh! we are so glad! But I won’t tease you to be so.”
“I can like it better now,” said Ethel. “You know Norman thinks very highly of your brother, and declares that it will all come out by and by.”
Meta clapped her hands, and said that she should tell her father, and Ethel parted with her, liking her, at least, better than ever. There was a comical scene between her and the doctor, trying to define what relations they should become to each other, which Ethel thought did a good deal to mollify her father.
The history of George’s life did more; he took to pitying him, and pity was, indeed, akin to love in the good doctor’s mind. In fact, George was a man who could be liked, when once regarded as a belonging—a necessity, not a choice; for it was quite true that there was no harm in him, and a great deal of good nature. His constant kindness, and evident liking for Margaret, stood him in good stead; he made her a sort of confidante, bestowing on her his immeasurable appreciation of Flora’s perfections, and telling her how well he was getting on with “the old gentleman”—a name under which she failed to recognise her father.
As to Tom, he wrote his congratulations to Ethel, that she might make a wedding present of her Etruscan vases, the Cupids on which must have been put there by anticipation. Richard heard none of the doubts, and gave kind, warm congratulations, promising to return home for the wedding; and Mary and Blanche no sooner heard a whisper about bride’s-maids than all their opposition faded away, in a manner that quite scandalised Ethel, while it set Margaret on reminiscences of her having been a six-year-old bride’s-maid to Flora’s godmother, Mrs. Arnott.