The next day Ethel had hoped for a return to reason, but behold, the world was cross! The reaction of the long excitement was felt, Gertrude fretted, and was unwell; Aubrey was pettish at his lessons; and Mary and Blanche were weary, yawning and inattentive; every straw was a burden, and Miss Bracy had feelings.

Ethel had been holding an interminable conversation with her in the schoolroom, interrupted at last by a summons to speak to a Cocksmoor woman at the back door, and she was returning from the kitchen, when the doctor called her into his study.

“Ethel! what is all this? Mary has found Miss Bracy in floods of tears in the schoolroom, because she says you told her she was ill-tempered.”

“I am sure you will be quite as much surprised,” said Ethel, somewhat exasperated, “when you hear that you lacerated her feelings yesterday.”

“I? Why, what did I do?” exclaimed Dr. May.

“You showed your evident want of confidence in her.”

“I? What can I have done?”

“You met Aubrey and Gertrude in her charge, and you took them away at once to walk with you.”

“Well?”

“Well, that was it. She saw you had no confidence in her.”

“Ethel, what on earth can you mean? I saw the two children dragging on her, and I thought she would see nothing that was going on, and would be glad to be released; and I wanted them to go with me and see Meta’s gold pheasants.”

“That was the offence. She has been breaking her heart all this time, because she was sure, from your manner, that you were displeased to see them alone with her—eating bon-bons, I believe, and therefore took them away.”

“Daisy is the worse for her bon-bons, I believe, but the overdose of them rests on my shoulders. I do not know how to believe you, Ethel. Of course you told her nothing of the kind crossed my mind, poor thing!”

“I told her so, over and over again, as I have done forty times before but her feelings are always being hurt.”

“Poor thing, poor thing! no doubt it is a trying situation, and she is sensitive. Surely you are all forbearing with her?”

“I hope we are,” said Ethel; “but how can we tell what vexes her?”

“And what is this, of your telling her she was ill-tempered?” asked Dr. May incredulously.

“Well, papa,” said Ethel, softened, yet wounded by his thinking it so impossible. “I had often thought I ought to tell her that these sensitive feelings of hers were nothing but temper; and perhaps—indeed I know I do—I partake of the general fractiousness of the house to-day, and I did not bear it so patiently as usual. I did say that I thought it wrong to foster her fancies; for if she looked at them coolly, she would find they were only a form of pride and temper.”

“It did not come well from you, Ethel,” said the doctor, looking vexed.

“No, I know it did not,” said Ethel meekly; “but oh! to have these janglings once a week, and to see no end to them!”

“Once a week?”

“It is really as often, or more often,” said Ethel. “If any of us criticise anything the girls have done, if there is a change in any arrangement, if she thinks herself neglected—I can’t tell you what little matters suffice; she will catch me, and argue with me, till—oh, till we are both half dead, and yet cannot stop ourselves.”

“Why do you argue?”

“If I could only help it!”

“Bad management,” said the doctor, in a low, musing tone. “You want a head!” and he sighed.

“Oh, papa, I did not mean to distress you. I would not have told you if I had remembered—but I am worried to-day, and off my guard—”

“Ethel, I thought you were the one on whom I could depend for bearing everything.”

“These were such nonsense!”

“What may seem nonsense to you is not the same to her. You must be forbearing, Ethel. Remember that dependence is prone to morbid sensitiveness, especially in those who have a humble estimate of themselves.”

“It seems to me that touchiness is more pride than humility,” said Ethel, whose temper, already not in the smoothest state, found it hard that, after having long borne patiently with these constant arguments, she should find Miss Bracy made the chief object of compassion.

Dr. May’s chivalrous feeling caused him to take the part of the weak, and he answered, “You know nothing about it. Among our own kith and kin we can afford to pass over slights, because we are sure the heart is right—we do not know what it is to be among strangers, uncertain of any claim to their esteem or kindness. Sad! sad!” he continued, as the picture wrought on him. “Each trifle seems a token one way or the other! I am very sorry I grieved the poor thing yesterday. I must go and tell her so at once.”

He put Ethel aside, and knocked at the schoolroom door, while Ethel stood, mortified. “He thinks I have been neglecting, or speaking harshly to her! For fifty times that I have borne with her maundering, I have, at last, once told her the truth; and for that I am accused of want of forbearance! Now he will go and make much of her, and pity her, till she will think herself an injured heroine, and be worse than ever; and he will do away with all the good of my advice, and want me to ask her pardon for it—but that I never will. It was only the truth, and I will stick to it.”

“Ethel!” cried Mary, running up to her, then slackening her pace, and whispering, “you did not tell Miss Bracy she was ill-tempered.”

“No—not exactly. How could you tell papa I did?”

“She said so. She was crying, and I asked what was the matter, and she said my sister Ethel said she was ill-tempered.”

“She made a great exaggeration then,” said Ethel.

“I am sure she was very cross all day,” said Mary.

“Well, that is no business of yours,” said Ethel pettishly. “What now? Mary, don’t look out at the street window.”

“It is Flora—the Grange carriage,” whispered Mary, as the two sisters made a precipitate retreat into the drawing-room.

Meanwhile, Dr. May had been in the schoolroom. Miss Bracy had ceased her tears before he came—they had been her retort on Ethel, and she had not intended the world to know of them. Half disconcerted, half angry, she heard the doctor approach. She was a gentle, tearful woman, one of those who are often called meek, under an erroneous idea that meekness consists in making herself exceedingly miserable under every kind of grievance; and she now had a sort of melancholy satisfaction in believing that the young ladies had fabricated an exaggerated complaint of her temper, and that she was going to become injured innocence. To think herself accused of a great wrong, excused her from perceiving herself guilty of a lesser one.

“Miss Bracy,” said Dr. May, entering with his frank, sweet look, “I am concerned that I vexed you by taking the children to walk with me yesterday. I thought such little brats would be troublesome to any but their spoiling papa, but they would have been in safer hands with you. You would not have been as weak as I was, in regard to sugar-plums.” Such amends as these confused Miss Bracy, who found it pleasanter to be lamentable with Ethel, than to receive a full apology for her imagined offence from the master of the house. Feeling both small and absurd, she murmured something of “oh, no,” and “being sure,” and hoped he was going, so that she might sit down to pity herself, for those girls having made her appear so ridiculous.

No such thing! Dr. May put a chair for her, and sat down himself, saying, with a smile, “You see, you must trust us sometimes, and overlook it, if we are less considerate than we might be. We have rough, careless habits with each other, and forget that all are not used to them.”

Miss Bracy exclaimed, “Oh, no, never, they were most kind.”

“We wish to be,” said Dr. May, “but there are little neglects—or you think there are. I will not say there are none, for that would be answering too much for human nature, or that they are fanciful—for that would be as little comfort as to tell a patient that the pain is only nervous—”

Miss Bracy smiled, for she could remember instances when, after suffering much at the time, she had found the affront imaginary.

He was glad of that smile, and proceeded. “You will let me speak to you, as to one of my own girls? To them, I should say, use the only true cure. Don’t brood over vexations, small or great, but think of them as trials that, borne bravely, become blessings.”

“Oh! but Dr. May!” she exclaimed, shocked; “nothing in your house could call for such feelings.”

“I hope we are not very savage,” he said, smiling; “but, indeed, I still say it is the safest rule. It would be the only one if you were really among unkind people; and, if you take so much to heart an unlucky neglect of mine, what would you do if the slight were a true one?”

“You are right; but my feelings were always over-sensitive;” and this she said with a sort of complacency.

“Well, we must try to brace them,” said Dr. May, much as if prescribing for her. “Will not you believe in our confidence and esteem, and harden yourself against any outward unintentional piece of incivility?”

She felt as if she could at that moment.

“Or at least, try to forgive and forget them. Talking them over only deepens the sense of them, and discussions do no good to any one. My daughters are anxious to be your best friends, as I hope you know.”

“Oh! they are most kind—”

“But, you see, I must say this,” added Dr. May, somewhat hesitating, “as they have no mother to—to spare all this,” and then, growing clearer, he proceeded, “I must beg you to be forbearing with them, and not perplex yourself and them with arguing on what cannot be helped. They have not the experience that could enable them to finish such a discussion without unkindness; and it can only waste the spirits, and raise fresh subjects of regret. I must leave you—I hear myself called.”

Miss Bracy began to be sensible that she had somewhat abused Ethel’s patience; and the unfortunate speech about the source of her sensitiveness did not appear to her so direfully cruel as at first. She hoped every one would forget all about it, and resolved not to take umbrage so easily another time, or else be silent about it, but she was not a person of much resolution.

The doctor found that Meta Rivers and her brother had brought Flora home, and were in the drawing-room, where Margaret was hearing another edition of the history of the fair, and a by-play was going on, of teasing Blanche about the chain.

George Rivers was trying to persuade her to make one for him; and her refusal came out at last, in an almost passionate key, in the midst of the other conversation—“No! I say-no!”

“Another no, and that will be yes.”

“No! I won’t! I don’t like you well enough!”

Margaret gravely sent Blanche and the other children away to take their walk, and the brother and sister soon after took leave, when Flora called Ethel to hasten to the Ladies’ Committee, that they might arrange the disposal of the one hundred and fifty pounds, the amount of their gains.

“To see the fate of Cocksmoor,” said Ethel.

“Do you think I cannot manage the Stoneborough folk?” said Flora, looking radiant with good humour, and conscious of power. “Poor Ethel! I am doing you good against your will! Never mind, here is wherewith to build the school, and the management will be too happy to fall into our hands. Do you think every one is as ready as you are, to walk three miles and back continually?”

There was sense in this; there always was sense in what Flora said, but it jarred on Ethel; and it seemed almost unsympathising in her to be so gay, when the rest were wearied or perturbed. Ethel would have been very glad of a short space to recollect herself, and recover her good temper; but it was late, and Flora hurried her to put on her bonnet, and come to the committee. “I’ll take care of your interests,” she said, as they set out. “You look as doleful as if you thought you should be robbed of Cocksmoor; but that is the last thing that will happen, you will see.”

“It would not be acting fairly to let them build for us, and then for us to put them out of the management,” said Ethel.

“My dear, they want importance, not action. They will leave the real power to us of themselves.”

“You like to build Cocksmoor with such instruments,” said Ethel, whose ruffled condition made her forget her resolution not to argue with Flora.

“Bricks are made of clay!” said Flora. “There, that was said like Norman himself! On your plan, we might have gone on for forty years, saving seven shillings a year, and spending six, whenever there was an illness in the place.”

“You, who used to dislike these people more than even I did!” said Ethel.

“That was when I was an infant, my dear, and did not know how to deal with them. I will take care—I will even save Cherry Elwood for you, if I can. Alan Ernescliffe’s ten pounds is a noble weapon.”

“You always mean to manage everything, and then you have no time!” said Ethel, sensible all the time of her own ill-humour, and of her sister’s patience and amiability, yet propelled to speak the unpleasant truths that in her better moods were held back.

Still Flora was good-tempered, though Ethel would almost have preferred her being provoked; “I know,” she said, “I have been using you ill, and leaving the world on your shoulders, but it was all in your service and Cocksmoor’s; and now we shall begin to be reasonable and useful again.”

“I hope so,” said Ethel.

“Really, Ethel, to comfort you, I think I shall send you with Norman to dine at Abbotstoke Grange on Wednesday. Mr. Rivers begged us to come; he is so anxious to make it lively for his son.”

“Thank you, I do not think Mr. George Rivers and I should be likely to get on together. What a bad style of wit! You heard what Mary said about him? and Ethel repeated the doubt between hating and detesting.

“Young men never know how to talk to little girls,” was Flora’s reply.

At this moment they came up with one of the Miss Andersons, and Flora began to exchange civilities, and talk over yesterday’s events with great animation. Her notice always gave pleasure, brightened as it was by the peculiarly engaging address which she had inherited from her father, and which, therefore, was perfectly easy and natural. Fanny Anderson was flattered and gratified, rather by the manner than the words, and, on excellent terms, they entered the committee-room, namely, the schoolmistress’s parlour.

There were nine ladies on the committee—nine muses, as the doctor called them, because they produced anything but harmony. Mrs. Ledwich was in the chair; Miss Rich was secretary, and had her pen and ink, and account-book ready. Flora came in, smiling and greeting; Ethel, grave, earnest, and annoyed, behind her, trying to be perfectly civil, but not at all enjoying the congratulations on the successful bazaar. The ladies all talked and discussed their yesterday’s adventures, gathering in little knots, as they traced the fate of favourite achievements of their skill, while Ethel, lugubrious and impatient, beside Flora, the only one not engaged, and, therefore, conscious of the hubbub of clacking tongues.

At last Mrs. Ledwich glanced at the mistress’s watch, in its pasteboard tower, in Gothic architecture, and insisted on proceeding to business. So they all sat down round a circular table, with a very fine red, blue, and black oilcloth, whose pattern was inseparably connected, in Ethel’s mind, with absurdity, tedium, and annoyance.

The business was opened by the announcement of what they all knew before, that the proceeds of the fancy fair amounted to one hundred and forty-nine pounds fifteen shillings and tenpence.

Then came a pause, and Mrs. Ledwich said that next they had to consider what was the best means of disposing of the sum gained in this most gratifying manner. Every one except Flora, Ethel, and quiet Mrs. Ward, began to talk at once. There was a great deal about Elizabethan architecture, crossed by much more, in which normal, industrial, and common things, most often met Ethel’s ear, with some stories, second-hand, from Harvey Anderson, of marvellous mistakes; and, on the opposite side of the table, there was Mrs. Ledwich, impressively saying something to the silent Mrs. Ward, marking her periods with emphatic beats with her pencil, and each seemed to close with “Mrs. Perkinson’s niece,” whom Ethel knew to be Cherry’s intended supplanter. She looked piteously at Flora, who only smiled and made a sign with her hand to her to be patient. Ethel fretted inwardly at that serene sense of power; but she could not but admire how well Flora knew how to bide her time, when, having waited till Mrs. Ledwich had nearly wound up her discourse on Mrs. Elwood’s impudence, and Mrs. Perkinson’s niece, she leaned towards Miss Boulder, who sat between, and whispered to her, “Ask Mrs. Ledwich if we should not begin with some steps for getting the land.”

Miss Boulder, having acted as conductor, the president exclaimed, “Just so, the land is the first consideration. We must at once take steps for obtaining it.” Thereupon Mrs. Ledwich, who “always did things methodically,” moved, and Miss Anderson seconded, that the land requisite for the school must be obtained, and the nine ladies held up their hands, and resolved it.

Miss Rich duly recorded the great resolution, and Miss Boulder suggested that, perhaps, they might write to the National Society, or Government, or something; whereat Miss Rich began to flourish one of the very long goose quills which stood in the inkstand before her, chiefly as insignia of office, for she always wrote with a small, stiff metal pen.

Flora here threw in a query, whether the National Society, or Government, or something, would give them a grant, unless they had the land to build upon?

The ladies all started off hereupon, and all sorts of instances of hardness of heart were mentioned, the most relevant of which was, that the Church Building Society would not give a grant to Mr. Holloway’s proprietary chapel at Whitford, when Mrs. Ledwich was suddenly struck with the notion that dear Mr. Holloway might be prevailed on to come to Stoneborough to preach a sermon in the Minster, for the benefit of Cocksmoor, when they would all hold plates at the door. Flora gave Ethel a tranquillising pat, and, as Mrs. Ledwich turned to her, asking whether she thought Dr. May, or Dr. Hoxton, would prevail on him to come, she said, with her winning look, “I think that consideration had better wait till we have some more definite view. Had we not better turn to this land question?”

“Quite true!” they all agreed, but to whom did the land belong?—and what a chorus arose! Miss Anderson thought it belonged to Mr. Nicolson, because the wagons of slate had James Nicolson on them, and, if so, they had no chance, for he was an old miser—and six stories illustrative thereof ensued. Miss Rich was quite sure some Body held it, and Bodies were slow of movement. Mrs. Ledwich remembered some question of enclosing, and thought all waste lands were under the Crown; she knew that the Stoneborough people once had a right to pasture their cattle, because Mr. Southron’s cow had tumbled down a loam-pit when her mother was a girl. No, that was on Far-view down, out the other way! Miss Harrison was positive that Sir Henry Walkinghame had some right there, and would not Dr. May apply to him? Mrs. Grey thought it ought to be part of the Drydale estate, and Miss Boulder was certain that Mr. Bramshaw knew all about it.

Flora’s gentle voice carried conviction that she knew what she was saying, when, at last, they left a moment for her to speak—(Ethel would have done so long ago). “If I am not mistaken, the land is a copyhold of Sir Henry Walkinghame, held under the manor of Drydale, which belongs to M—— College, and is underlet to Mr. Nicolson.”

Everybody, being partially right, was delighted, and had known it all before; Miss Boulder agreed with Miss Anderson that Miss May had stated it as lucidly as Mr. Bramshaw could. The next question was, to whom to apply? and, after as much as was expedient had been said in favour of each, it was decided that, as Sir Henry Walkinghame was abroad, no one knew exactly where, it would be best to go to the fountain-head, and write at once to the principal of the college. But who was to write? Flora proposed Mr. Ramsden as the fittest person, but this was negatived. Every one declared that he would never take the trouble, and Miss Rich began to agitate her pens. By this time, however, Mrs. Ward, who was opposite to the Gothic clock-tower, began to look uneasy, and suggested, in a nervous manner, that it was half-past five, and she was afraid Mr. Ward would be kept waiting for his dinner. Mrs. Grey began to have like fears, that Mr. Grey would be come in from his ride after banking hours. The other ladies began to think of tea, and the meeting decided on adjourning till that day next week, when the committee would sit upon Miss Rich’s letter.

“My dear Miss Flora!” began Miss Rich, adhering to her as they parted with the rest at the end of the street, “how am I to write to a principal? Am I to begin Reverend Sir, or My Lord, or is he Venerable, like an archdeacon? What is his name, and what am I to say?”

“Why, it is not a correspondence much in my line,” said Flora, laughing.

“Ah! but you are so intimate with Dr. Hoxton, and your brothers at Oxford! You must know—”

“I’ll take advice,” said Flora good-naturedly. “Shall I come, and call before Friday, and tell you the result?”

“Oh, pray! It will be a real favour! Good-morning—”

“There,” said Flora, as the sisters turned homewards, “Cherry is not going to be turned out just yet!”

“How could you, Flora? Now they will have that man from Whitford, and you said not a word against it!”

“What was the use of adding to the hubbub? A little opposition would make them determined on having him. You will see, Ethel, we shall get the ground on our own terms, and then it will be time to settle about the mistress. If the harvest holidays were not over, we would try to send Cherry to a training-school, so as to leave them no excuse.”

“I hate all this management and contrivance. It would be more honest to speak our minds, and not pretend to agree with them.”

“My dear Ethel! have I spoken a word contrary to my opinion? It is not fit for me, a girl of twenty, to go disputing and dragooning as you would have me; but a little savoir faire, a grain of common sense, thrown in among the babble, always works. Don’t you remember how Mrs. Ward’s sister told us that a whole crowd of tottering Chinese ladies would lean on her, because they felt her firm support, though it was out of sight?”

Ethel did not answer; she had self-control enough left not to retort upon Flora’s estimate of herself, but the irritation was strong; she felt as if her cherished views for Cocksmoor were insulted, as well as set aside, by the place being made the occasion of so much folly and vain prattle, the sanctity of her vision of self-devotion destroyed by such interference, and Flora’s promises did not reassure her. She doubted Flora’s power, and had still more repugnance to the means by which her sister tried to govern; they did not seem to her straightforward, and she could not endure Flora’s complacency in their success. Had it not been for her real love for the place and people, as well as the principle which prompted that love, she could have found it in her heart to throw up all concern with it, rather than become a fellow-worker with such a conclave.

Such were Ethel’s feelings as the pair walked down the street; the one sister bright and smiling with the good humour that had endured many shocks all that day, all good nature and triumph, looking forward to success, great benefit to Cocksmoor, and plenty of management, with credit and praise to herself; the other, downcast and irritable, with annoyance at the interference with her schemes, at the prospects of her school, and at herself for being out of temper, prone to murmur or to reply tartly, and not able to recover from her mood, but only, as she neared the house, lapsing into her other trouble, and preparing to resist any misjudged, though kind attempt of her father, to make her unsay her rebuke to Miss Bracy. Pride and temper! Ah! Etheldred! where were they now?

Dr. May was at his study door as his daughters entered the hall, and Ethel expected the order which she meant to question; but, instead of this, after a brief inquiry after the doings of the nine muses, which Flora answered, so as to make him laugh, he stopped Ethel, as she was going upstairs, by saying, “I do not know whether this letter is intended for Richard, or for me. At any rate, it concerns you most.”

The envelope was addressed to the Reverend Richard May, D. D., Market Stoneborough, and the letter began, “Reverend Sir.” So far Ethel saw, and exclaimed, with amusement, then, with a long-drawn “Ah!” and an interjection, “My poor dear Una!” she became absorbed, the large tears—yes, Ethel’s reluctant tears gathering slowly and dropping.

The letter was from a clergyman far away in the north of England, who said he could not, though a stranger, resist the desire to send to Dr. May an account of a poor girl, who seemed to have received great benefits from him, or from some of his family, especially as she had shown great eagerness on his proposing to write.

He said it was nearly a year since there had come into his parish a troop of railwaymen and their families. For the most part, they were completely wild and rude, unused to any pastoral care; but, even on the first Sunday, he had noticed a keen-looking, freckled, ragged, unmistakably Irish girl, creeping into church with a Prayer-book in her hand, and had afterwards found her hanging about the door of the school. “I never saw a more engaging, though droll, wild expression, than that with which she looked up to me.” (Ethel’s cry of delight was at that sentence—she knew that look too well, and had yearned after it so often!) “I found her far better instructed than her appearance had led me to expect, and more truly impressed with the spirit of what she had learned than it has often been my lot to find children. She was perfect in the New Testament history”—(“Ah! that she was not, when she went away!”)—“and was in the habit of constantly attending church, and using morning and evening prayers.” (“Oh! how I longed, when she went away, to beg her to keep them up! Dear Una.”) “On my questions, as to how she had been taught, she always replied, ‘Mr. Richard May,’ or ‘Miss Athel.’ You must excuse me if I have not correctly caught the name from her Irish pronunciation.” (“I am afraid he thinks my name is Athaliah! But oh! this dear girl! How I have wished to hear of her!”) “Everything was answered with ‘Mr. Richard,’ or ‘Miss Athel’; and, if I inquired further, her face would light up with a beam of gratitude, and she would run on, as long as I could listen, with instances of their kindness. It was the same with her mother, a wild, rude specimen of an Irishwoman, whom I never could bring to church herself, but who ran on loudly with their praises, usually ending with ‘Heavens be their bed,’ and saying that Una had been quite a different girl since the young ladies and gentleman found her out, and put them parables in her head.

“For my own part, I can testify that, in the seven months that she attended my school, I never had a serious fault to find with her, but far more often to admire the earnestness and devout spirit, as well as the kindness and generosity apparent in all her conduct. Bad living, and an unwholesome locality, have occasioned a typhus fever among the poor strangers in this place, and Una was one of the first victims. Her mother, almost from the first, gave her up, saying she knew she was one marked for glory; and Una has been lying, day after day, in a sort of half-delirious state, constantly repeating hymns and psalms, and generally, apparently very happy, except when one distress occurred again and again, whether delirious or sensible, namely, that she had never gone to wish Miss May good-bye, and thank her; and that maybe she and Mr. Richard thought her ungrateful; and she would sometimes beg, in her phraseology, to go on her bare knees to Stoneborough, only to see Miss Athel again.

“Her mother, I should say, told me the girl had been half mad at not being allowed to go and take leave of Miss May; and she had been sorry herself, but her husband had come home suddenly from the search for work, and, having made his arrangements, removed them at once, early the next morning—too early to go to the young lady; though, she said, Una did—as they passed through Stoneborough—run down the street before she was aware, and she found her sobbing, fit to break her heart, before the house.” (“Oh, why, why was I not up, and at the window! Oh, my Una! to think of that!”) “When I spoke of writing to let Miss May hear how it was, the poor girl caught at the idea with the utmost delight. Her weakness was too great to allow her to utter many words distinctly, when I asked her what she would have me say, but these were as well as I could understand:—‘The blessing of one, that they have brought peace unto. Tell them I pray, and will pray, that they may walk in the robe of glory—and tell Mr. Richard that I mind what he said to me, of taking hold on the sure hope. God crown all their crosses unto them, and fulfil all their desires unto everlasting life.’ I feel that I am not rendering her words with all their fervour and beauty of Irish expression, but I would that I could fully retain and transmit them, for those who have so led her must, indeed, be able to feel them precious. I never saw a more peaceful frame of penitence and joy. She died last night, sleeping herself away, without more apparent suffering, and will be committed to the earth on Sunday next, all her fellow-scholars attending; and, I hope, profiting by the example she has left.

“I have only to add my most earnest congratulations to those whose labour of love has borne such blessed fruit; and, hoping you will pardon the liberty, etc.”

Etheldred finished the letter through blinding tears, while rising sobs almost choked her. She ran away to her own room, bolted the door, and threw herself on her knees, beside her bed—now confusedly giving thanks for such results—now weeping bitterly over her own unworthiness. Oh! what was she in the sight of Heaven, compared with what this poor girl had deemed her—with what this clergyman thought her? She, the teacher, taught, trained, and guarded, from her infancy, by her wise mother, and by such a father! She, to have given way all day to pride, jealousy, anger, selfish love of her own will; when this poor girl had embraced, and held fast, the blessed hope, from the very crumbs they had brought her! Nothing could have so humbled the distrustful spirit that had been working in Ethel, which had been scotched into silence—not killed—when she endured the bazaar, and now had been indemnifying itself by repining at every stumbling-block. Her own scholar’s blessing was the rebuke that went most home to her heart, for having doubted whether good could be worked in any way, save her own.

She was interrupted by Mary trying to open the door, and, admitting her, heard her wonder at the traces of her tears, and ask what there was about Una. Ethel gave her the letter, and Mary’s tears showered very fast—they always came readily. “Oh, Ethel, how glad Richard will be!”

“Yes; it is all Richard’s doing. So much more good, and wise, and humble, as he is. No wonder his teaching—” and Ethel sat down and cried again.

Mary pondered. “It makes me very glad,” she said; “and yet I don’t know why one cries. Ethel, do you think”—she came near, and whispered—“that Una has met dear mamma there?”

Ethel kissed her. It was almost the first time Mary had spoken of her mother; and she answered, “Dear Mary, we cannot tell—we may think. It is all one communion, you know.”

Mary was silent, and, next time she spoke, it was to hope that Ethel would tell the Cocksmoor children about Una.

Ethel was obliged to dress, and go downstairs to tea. Her father seemed to have been watching for her, with his study door open, for he came to meet her, took her hand, and said, in a low voice, “My dear child, I wish you joy. This will be a pleasant message, to bid poor Ritchie good speed for his ordination, will it not?”

“That it will, papa—”

“Why, Ethel, have you been crying over it all this time?” said he, struck by the sadness of her voice.

“Many other things, papa. I am so unworthy—but it was not our doing—but the grace—”

“No, but thankful you may be, to have been the means of awakening the grace!”

Ethel’s lips trembled. “And oh, papa! coming to-day, when I have been behaving so ill to you, and Miss Bracy, and Flora, and all.

“Have you? I did not know you had behaved ill to me.”

“About Miss Bracy—I thought wrong things, if I did not say them. To her, I believe, I said what was true, though it was harsh of me to say it, and—”

“What? about pride and temper? It was true, and I hope it will do her good. Cure a piping turkey with a peppercorn sometimes. I have spoken to her, and told her to pluck up a little spirit; not fancy affronts, and not to pester you with them. Poor child! you have been sadly victimised to-day and yesterday. No wonder you were bored past patience, with that absurd rabble of women!”

“It was all my own selfish, distrustful temper, wanting to have Cocksmoor taken care of in my own way, and angry at being interfered with. I see it now—and here this poor girl, that I thought thrown away—”

“Ay, Ethel, you will often see the like. The main object may fail or fall short, but the earnest painstaking will always be blessed some way or other, and where we thought it most wasted, some fresh green shoot will spring up, to show it is not we that give the increase. I suppose you will write to Richard with this?”

“That I shall.”

“Then you may send this with it. Tell him my arm is tired and stiff to-day, or I would have said more. He must answer the clergyman’s letter.”

Dr. May gave Ethel his sheet not folded. His written words were now so few as to be cherished amongst his children.

“Dear Richard,—

“May all your ministerial works be as blessed as this, your first labour of love. I give you hearty joy of this strengthening blessing. Mine goes with it—‘Only be strong and of a good courage!’

“PS.—Margaret does not gain ground this summer; you must soon come home and cheer her.”