Dr. May thought it a great relief that Meta had a home with Flora, for, as he said to Ethel as they went home together, “Certainly, except Lord Cosham, I never saw such an unpresentable crew as their relations. You should have heard the boys afterwards! There was Master Tom turning up his Eton nose at them, and pronouncing that there never were such a set of snobs, and Norman taking him to task as I never heard him do before—telling him that he would never have urged his going to Eton, if he had thought it would make him despise respectable folks, probably better than himself, and that this was the last time in the world for such observations—whereat poor Tommy was quite annihilated; for a word from Norman goes further with him than a lecture from any one else.”
“Well, I think Norman was right as to the unfitness of the time.”
“So he was. But we had a good deal of them, waiting in the inn parlour. People make incongruities when they will have such things done in state. It could not be helped here, to be sure; but I always feel, at a grand undertaker’s display like this, that, except the service itself, there is little to give peace or soothing. I hate what makes a talk! Better be little folk.”
“One would rather think of our own dear cloister, and those who cared so much,” said Ethel.
“Ah! you were happy to be there!” said Dr. May. “But it all comes to the same.” Pausing, he looked from the window, then signed to Ethel to do the same—Orion glittered in the darkness.
“One may sleep sound without the lullaby,” said Dr. May, “and the waves—”
“Oh! don’t, papa. You don’t give up hope!”
“I believe we ought, Ethel. Don’t tell her, but I went to the Admirality to-day.”
“And what did you hear there?”
“Great cause for fear—but they do not give up. My poor Margaret! But those stars tell us they are in the same Hand.”