He sent Ethel to bed, saying he should talk to Norman and find out what was the meaning of it, and she walked upstairs, much ashamed of having so ill served her brother, as almost to have made him ridiculous.
Dr May and Norman never failed to come to an understanding, and after they had had a long drive into the country together, Dr May told Ethel that he was afraid, of what he ought not to be afraid of, that she was right, that the lad was very much in earnest now at any rate, and if he should continue in the same mind, he hoped he should not be so weak as to hold him from a blessed work.
From Norman, Ethel heard the warmest gratitude for his father’s kindness. Nothing could be done yet, he must wait patiently for the present, but he was to write to his uncle, Mr. Arnott, in New Zealand, and, without pledging himself, to make inquiries as to the mission; and in the meantime, return to Oxford, where, to his other studies, he was to add a course of medical lectures, which, as Dr. May said, would do him no harm, would occupy his mind, and might turn to use wherever he was.
Ethel was surprised to find that Norman wrote to Flora an expression of his resolution, that, if he found he could be spared from assisting his father as a physician, he would give himself up to the mission in New Zealand. Why should he tell any one so unsympathetic as Flora, who would think him wasted in either case?
CHAPTER XVII.
Do not fear: Heaven is as near,
By water, as by land.—LONGFELLOW.
The fifth of May was poor Harry’s eighteenth birthday, and, as usual, was a holiday. Etheldred privately thought his memory more likely to be respected, if Blanche and Aubrey were employed, than if they were left in idleness; but Mary would have been wretched had the celebration been omitted, and a leisure day was never unwelcome.
Dr. Spencer carried off Blanche and Aubrey for a walk, and Ethel found Mary at her great resort—Harry’s cupboard—dusting and arranging his books, and the array of birthday gifts, to which, even to-day, she had not failed to add the marker that had been in hand at Christmas. Ethel entreated her to come down, and Mary promised, and presently appeared, looking so melancholy, that, as a sedative, Ethel set her down to the basket of scraps to find materials for a tippet for some one at Cocksmoor, intending, as soon as Margaret should be dressed, to resign her morning to the others, invite Miss Bracy to the drawing-room, and read aloud.
Gertrude was waiting for her walk, till nurse should have dressed Margaret, and was frisking about the lawn, sometimes looking in at the drawing-room window at her sisters, sometimes chattering to Adams at his work, or laughing to herself and the flowers, in that overflow of mirth, that seemed always bubbling up within her.