Ethel’s navigation lesson was interrupted by the dinner-bell. That long table was a goodly sight. Few ever looked happier than Dr. and Mrs. May, as they sat opposite to each other, presenting a considerable contrast in appearance as in disposition. She was a little woman, with that smooth pleasant plumpness that seems to belong to perfect content and serenity, her complexion fair and youthful, her face and figure very pretty, and full of quiet grace and refinement, and her whole air and expression denoting a serene, unruffled, affectionate happiness, yet with much authority in her mildness—warm and open in her own family, but reserved beyond it, and shrinking from general society.

The doctor, on the contrary, had a lank, bony figure, nearly six feet high, and looking more so from his slightness; a face sallow, thin, and strongly marked, an aquiline nose, highly developed forehead, and peculiar temples, over which the hair strayed in thin curling flakes. His eyes were light coloured, and were seldom seen without his near-sighted spectacles, but the expressions of the mouth were everything—so varying, so bright, and so sweet were his smiles that showed beautiful white teeth—moreover, his hand was particularly well made, small and delicate; and it always turned out that no one ever recollected that Dr. May was plain, who had heard his kindly greeting.

The sons and daughters were divided in likeness to father and mother; Ethel was almost an exaggeration of the doctor’s peculiarities, especially at the formed, but unsoftened age of fifteen; Norman had his long nose, sallow complexion, and tall figure, but was much improved by his mother’s fine blue eyes, and was a very pleasant-looking boy, though not handsome; little Tom was a thin, white, delicate edition of his father; and Blanche contrived to combine great likeness to him with a great deal of prettiness. Of those that, as nurse said, favoured their mamma, Margaret was tall and blooming, with the same calm eyes, but with the brilliance of her father’s smile; Flora had greater regularity of feature, and was fast becoming a very pretty girl, while Mary and Harry could not boast of much beauty, but were stout sturdy pictures of health; Harry’s locks in masses of small tight yellow curls, much given to tangling and matting, unfit to be seen all the week, till nurse put him to torture every Saturday, by combing them out so as, at least, to make him for once like, she said, a gentleman, instead of a young lion.

Little Aubrey was said by his papa to be like nothing but the full moon. And there he shone on them, by his mamma’s side, announcing in language few could understand, where he had been with papa.

“He has been a small doctor,” said his father, beginning to cut the boiled beef as fast as if his hands had been moved by machinery. “He has been with me to see old Mrs. Robins, and she made so much of him, that if I take him again he’ll be regularly spoiled.”

“Poor old woman, it must have been a pleasure to her,” said Mrs. May—“it is so seldom she has any change.”

“Who is she?” asked Mr. Ernescliffe.

“The butcher’s old mother,” said Margaret, who was next to him. “She is one of papa’s pet patients, because he thinks her desolate and ill-used.”

“Her sons bully her,” said the doctor, too intent on carving to perceive certain deprecatory glances of caution cast at him by his wife, to remind him of the presence of man and maid—“and that smart daughter is worse still. She never comes to see the old lady but she throws her into an agitated state, fit to bring on another attack. A meek old soul, not fit to contend with them!”

“Why do they do it?” said Ethel.

“For the cause of all evil! That daughter marries a grazier, and wants to set up for gentility; she comes and squeezes presents out of her mother, and the whole family are distrusting each other, and squabbling over the spoil before the poor old creature is dead! It makes one sick! I gave that Mrs. Thorn a bit of my mind at last; I could not stand the sight any longer. Madam, said I, you’ll have to answer for your mother’s death, as sure as my name’s Dick May—a harpy dressed up in feathers and lace.”

There was a great laugh, and an entreaty to know whether this was really his address—Ethel telling him she knew he had muttered it to himself quite audibly, for which she was rewarded by a pretended box on the ear. It certainly was vain to expect order at dinner on Saturday, for the doctor was as bad as the boys, and Mrs. May took it with complete composure, hardly appearing sensible of the Babel which would sometimes almost deafen its promoter, papa; and yet her interference was all-powerful, as now when Harry and Mary were sparring over the salt, with one gentle “Mary!” and one reproving glance, they were reduced to quiescence.

Meanwhile Dr. May, in a voice above the tumult, was telling “Maggie,” as he always called his wife, some piece of news about Mr. Rivers, who had bought Abbotstoke Grange; and Alan Ernescliffe, in much lower tones, saying to Margaret how he delighted in the sight of these home scenes, and this free household mirth.

“It is the first time you have seen us in perfection,” said Margaret, “with mamma at the head of the table—no, not quite perfection either, without Richard.”

“I am very glad to have seen it,” repeated Alan. “What a blessing it must be to your brothers to have such a home!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Margaret earnestly.

“I cannot fancy any advantage in life equal to it. Your father and mother so entirely one with you all.”

Margaret smiled, too much pleased to speak, and glanced at her mother’s sweet face.

“You can’t think how often I shall remember it, or how rejoiced I—” He broke off, for the noise subsided, and his speech was not intended for the public ear, so he dashed into the general conversation, and catching his own name, exclaimed, “What’s that base proposal, Ethel?”

“To put you on the donkey,” said Norman.

“They want to see a sailor riding,” interposed the doctor.

“Dr. May!” cried the indignant voice of Hector Ernescliffe, as his honest Scottish face flushed like a turkey cock, “I assure you that Alan rides like—”

“Like a horse marine,” said Norman.

Hector and Harry both looked furious, but “June” was too great a man in their world for them to attempt any revenge, and it was left for Mary to call out, “Why, Norman, nonsense! Mr. Ernescliffe rode the new black kicking horse till he made it quite steady.”

“Made it steady! No, Mary, that is saying too much for it,” said Mr. Ernescliffe.

“It has no harm in it—capital horse—splendid,” said the doctor; “I shall take you out with it this afternoon, Maggie.”

“You have driven it several times?” said Alan.

“Yes, I drove him to Abbotstoke yesterday—never started, except at a fool of a woman with an umbrella, and at the train—and we’ll take care not to meet that.”

“It is only to avoid the viaduct at half-past four,” said Mrs. May, “and that is easily done.”

“So you are bound for Cocksmoor?” said the doctor. “I told the poor fellow you were going to see his wife, and he was so thankful, that it did one’s heart good.”

“Is he better? I should like to tell his wife,” said Flora.

The doctor screwed up his face. “A bad business,” he said; “he is a shade better to-day; he may get through yet; but he is not my patient. I only saw him because I happened to be there when he was brought in, and Ward was not in the way.”

“And what’s his name?”

“I can’t tell—don’t think I ever heard.”

“We ought to know,” said Miss Winter; “it would be awkward to go without.”

“To go roaming about Cocksmoor asking where the man in the hospital lives!” said Flora. “We can’t wait till Monday.”

“I’ve done,” said Norman; “I’ll run down to the hospital and find out. May I, mamma?”

“Without your pudding, old fellow?”

“I don’t want pudding,” said Norman, slipping back his chair. “May I, mamma?”

“To be sure you may;” and Norman, with a hand on the back of Ethel’s chair, took a flying leap over his own, that set all the glasses ringing.

“Stop, stop! know what you are going after, sir,” cried his father. “What will they know there of Cocksmoor, or the man whose wife has twins? You must ask for the accident in number five.”

“And oh, Norman, come back in time!” said Ethel.

“I’ll be bound I’m back before Etheldred the Unready wants me,” he answered, bounding off with an elasticity that caused his mother to say the boy was made of india-rubber; and then putting his head in by the window to say, “By-the-bye, if there’s any pudding owing to me, that little chorister fellow of ours, Bill Blake, has got a lot of voracious brothers that want anything that’s going. Tom and Blanche might take it down to ‘em; I’m off! Hooray!” and he scampered headlong up the garden, prolonging his voice into a tremendous shout as he got farther off, leaving every one laughing, and his mother tenderly observing that he was going to run a quarter of a mile and back, and lose his only chance of pudding for the week—old Bishop Whichcote’s rules contemplating no fare but daily mutton, to be bought at a shilling per sheep. A little private discussion ensued between Harry and Hector on the merits of the cakes at Ballhatchet’s gate, and old Nelly’s pies, which led the doctor to mourn over the loss of the tarts of the cranberries, that used to grow on Cocksmoor, before it was inhabited, and to be the delight of the scholars of Stoneborough, when he was one of them—and then to enchant the boys by relations of ancient exploits, especially his friend Spencer climbing up, and engraving a name on the top of the market cross, now no more—swept away by the Town Council in a fit of improvement, which had for the last twenty years enraged the doctor at every remembrance of it. Perhaps at this moment his wife could hardly sympathise, when she thought of her boys emulating such deeds.

“Papa,” said Ethel, “will you lend me a pair of spectacles for the walk?”

“And make yourself one, Ethel,” said Flora.

“I don’t care—I want to see the view.”

“It is very bad for you, Ethel,” further added her mother; “you will make your sight much shorter if you accustom your eyes to them.”

“Well, mamma, I never do wear them about the house.”

“For a very good reason,” said Margaret; “because you haven’t got them.”

“No, I believe Harry stole them in the holidays.”

“Stole them!” said the doctor; “as if they weren’t my property, unjustifiably appropriated by her!”

“They were that pair that you never could keep on, papa,” said Ethel—“no use at all to you. Come, do lend me them.”

“I’m sure I shan’t let you wear them,” said Harry. “I shan’t go, if you choose to make yourself such an object.”

“Ah!” said the father, “the boys thought it time to put a stop to it when it came to a caricature of the little doctor in petticoats.”

“Yes, in Norman’s Lexicon,” said Ethel, “a capital likeness of you, papa; but I never could get him to tell me who drew it.”

Nor did Ethel know that that caricature had been the cause of the black eye that Harry had brought home last summer. Harry returned, to protest that he would not join the walk, if she chose to be seen in the spectacles, while she undauntedly continued her petition, though answered that she would attract the attacks of the quarrymen, who would take her for an attenuated owl.

“I wish you were obliged to go about without them yourself, papa!” cried Ethel, “and then you would know how tiresome it is not to see twice the length of your own nose.”

“Not such a very short allowance either,” said the doctor quaintly, and therewith the dinner concluded. There was apt to be a race between the two eldest girls for the honour of bringing down the baby; but this time their father strode up three steps at once, turned at the top of the first flight, made his bow to them, and presently came down with his little daughter in his arms, nodded triumphantly at the sisters, and set her down on her mother’s lap.

“There, Maggie, you are complete, you old hen-and-chicken daisy. Can’t you take her portrait in the character, Margaret?”

“With her pink cap, and Blanche and Aubrey as they are now, on each side?” said Flora.

“Margaret ought to be in the picture herself,” said Ethel. “Fetch the artist in Norman’s Lexicon, Harry.”

“Since he has hit off one of us so well,” said the doctor. “Well! I’m off. I must see old Southern. You’ll be ready by three? Good-bye, hen and chicken.”

“And I may have the spectacles?” said Ethel, running after him; “you know I am an injured individual, for mamma won’t let me carry baby about the house because I am so blind.”

“You are welcome to embellish yourself, as far as I am concerned.”

A general dispersion ensued, and only Mrs. May, Margaret, and the baby, remained.

“Oh, no!” sighed Margaret; “you can’t be the hen-and-chicken daisy properly, without all your chickens. It is the first christening we ever had without our all being there.”

“It was best not to press it, my dear,” said her mother. “Your papa would have had his thoughts turned to the disappointment again and it makes Richard himself so unhappy to see his vexation, that I believe it is better not to renew it.”

“But to miss him for so long!” said Margaret. “Perhaps it is best, for it is very miserable when papa is sarcastic and sharp, and he cannot understand it, and takes it as meaning so much more than it really does, and grows all the more frightened and diffident. I cannot think what he would do without you to encourage him.”

“Or you, you good sister,” said her mother, smiling. “If we could only teach him not to mind being laughed at, and to have some confidence in himself, he and papa would get on together.”

“It is very hard,” cried Margaret, almost indignantly, “that papa won’t believe it, when he does his best.”

“I don’t think papa can bear to bring himself to believe that it is his best.”

“He is too clever himself to see how other people can be slow,” said Margaret; “and yet”—the tears came into her eyes—“I cannot bear to think of his telling Richard it was no use to think of being a clergyman, and he had better turn carpenter at once, just because he failed in his examination.”

“My dear, I wish you would forget that,” said Mrs. May. “You know papa sometimes says more than he means, and he was excessively vexed and disappointed. I know he was pleased with Ritchie’s resolve not to come home again till he had passed, and it is best that it should not be broken.”

“The whole vacation, studying so hard, and this christening!” said Margaret; “it is treating him as if he had done wrong. I do believe Mr. Ernescliffe thinks he has—for papa always turns away the conversation if his name is mentioned! I wish you would explain it, mamma; I can’t bear that.”

“If I can,” said Mrs. May, rather pleased that Margaret had taken on herself this vindication of her favourite brother her father’s expense. “But, after all, Margaret, I never feel quite sure that poor Ritchie does exert himself to the utmost, he is too desponding to make the most of himself.”

“And the more vexed papa is, the worse it grows!” said Margaret. “It is provoking, though. How I do wish sometimes to give Ritchie a jog, when there is some stumbling-block that he sticks fast at. Don’t you remember those sums, and those declensions? When he is so clear and sensible about practical matters too—anything but learning—I cannot think why—and it is very mortifying!”

“I dare say it is very good for us not to have our ambition gratified,” said her mother. “There are so many troubles worse than these failures, that it only shows how happy we are that we should take them so much to heart.”

“They are a very real trouble!” said Margaret. “Don’t smile, mamma. Only remember how wretched his schooldays were, when papa could not see any difficulty in what to him was so hard, and how all papa’s eagerness only stupified him the more.”

“They are a comfort not to have that over again! Yet,” said the mother, “I often think there is more fear for Norman. I dread his talent and success being snares.”

“There is no self-sufficiency about him,” said Margaret.

“I hope not, and he is so transparent, that it would be laughed down at the first bud: but the universal good report, and certainty of success, and being so often put in comparison with Richard, is hardly safe. I was very glad he heard what Ethel said to-day.”

“Ethel spoke very deeply,” said Margaret; “I was a good deal struck by it—she often comes out with such solid thoughts.”

“She is an excellent companion for Norman.”

“The desire of being first!” said Margaret, “I suppose that is a form of caring for oneself! It set me thinking a good deal, mamma, how many forms of ambition there are. The craving for rank, or wealth, or beauty, are so clearly wrong, that one does not question about them; but I suppose, as Ethel said, the caring to be first in attainments is as bad.”

“Or in affection,” said Mrs. May.

“In affection—oh, mamma, there is always some one person with whom one is first!” said Margaret eagerly; and then, her colour deepening, as she saw her mother looking at her, she said hastily, “Ritchie—I never considered it—but I know—it is my great pleasure—oh, mamma!”

“Well, my dear, I do not say but that you are the first with Richard, and that you well deserve to be so; but is the seeking to be the first even in that way safe? Is it not self-seeking again?”

“Well, perhaps it is. I know it is what makes jealousy.”

“The only plan is not to think about ourselves at all,” said Mrs. May. “Affection is round us like sunshine, and there is no use in measuring and comparing. We must give it out freely ourselves, hoping for nothing again.”

“Oh, mamma, you don’t mean that!”

“Perhaps I should have said, bargaining for nothing again. It will come of itself, if we don’t exact it; but rivalry is the sure means of driving it away, because that is trying to get oneself worshipped.”

“I suppose, then, you have never thought of it,” said Margaret, smiling.

“Why, it would have been rather absurd,” said Mrs. May, laughing, “to begin to torment myself whether you were all fond of me! You all have just as much affection for me, from beginning to end, as is natural, and what’s the use of thinking about it? No, no, Margaret, don’t go and protest that you love me, more than is natural,” as Margaret looked inclined to say something very eager, “that would be in the style of Regan and Goneril. It will be natural by-and-by that you should, some of you, love some one else better, and if I cared for being first, what should I do then?”

“Oh, mamma! But,” said Margaret suddenly, “you are always sure of papa.”

“In one way, yes,” said Mrs. May; “but how do I know how long—” Calm as she was, she could not finish that sentence. “No, Margaret, depend upon it, the only security is not to think about ourselves at all, and not to fix our mind on any affection on earth. The least share of the Love above is the fullness of all blessing, and if we seek that first, all these things will be added unto us, and are,” she whispered, more to herself than to Margaret.