“I can’t sound,” said Ethel. “I can only do things point-blank.”
“Do then,” said Norman, “any way you can! Only let me know which is best for him. You get all the disagreeable things to do, good old unready one,” he added kindly. “I believe you are the one who would be shoved in front, if we were obliged to face a basilisk.”
The brightness that had come over Norman, when he had discharged his cares upon her, was encouragement enough for Ethel. She only asked how much she was to repeat of their conversation.
“Whatever you think best. I do not want to grieve him, but he must not think it fine in me.”
Ethel privately thought that no power on earth could prevent him from doing that.
It was not consistent with cautious sounding, that Norman was always looking appealingly towards her; and, indeed, she could not wait long with such a question on her mind. She remained with her father in the drawing-room, when the rest were gone upstairs, and, plunging at once into the matter, she said, “Papa, there is something that Norman cannot bear to say to you himself.”
“Humming-birds to wit?” said Dr. May.
“No, indeed, but he wants to be doing something at once. What should you think of—of—there are two things; one is—going out as a missionary—”
“Humming-birds in another shape,” said the doctor, startled, but smiling, so as to pique her.
“You mean to treat it as a boy’s fancy!” said she.