The wedding-day was fixed for the 20th of January, since it was less risk to Flora as an absolute invalid, than as convalescent enough to take any share in the doings.

Meta managed her correspondence with her own relatives, and obtained her uncle’s kind approval, since he saw there could be nothing else; while her aunt treated her as an infatuated victim, but wished, for her mother’s sake, to meet her in London before she sailed.

The worst stroke of all was to Bellairs, who had never chosen to believe that her mistress could move without her, and though mortally afraid in crossing to the Isle of Wight, and utterly abhorring all “natives,” went into hysterics on finding that her young lady would take out no maid but a little hard-working village girl; and though transferred in the most flattering manner to Mrs. Rivers’s service, shed a tear for every stitch she set in the trousseau, and assured her betrothed butler that, if Miss Rivers would only have heard reason, she would have followed her to the world’s end, rather than that her beautiful hair should never look like anything again.

So the wedding-day came, and grass and trees wore a fitting suit of crisp hoariness. Nothing could be quieter. Meta was arrayed by the sobbing Bellairs in her simple bridal white, wrapped herself in a large shawl, took her brother’s arm, and walked down the frosty path with him and Mrs. Arnott, as if going merely to the daily service.

The time had not been made known, and there was hardly an addition to the ordinary congregation, except the May family and Dr. Spencer; but the Christmas evergreens still adorned aisle and chancel, and over the altar stood the motto that Meta herself had woven of holly, on that Christmas Eve of grief and anxiety, without knowing how it would speak to her.

Fear not, for length of voyage, for distance from kindred, for hardship, privation, misunderstanding, disappointment. The glad tidings are to all people, even to the utmost parts of the earth. Ye have your portion in the great joy—ye have freely cast in your lot with those, whose feet are beautiful on the mountains, who bear the good tidings. Fear not, for He is with you, who will never forsake.

Thus Dr. May read the words with swelling heart, as he looked at his son’s clear, grave, manful look, even as it had been when he made his Confirmation vow—his natural nervous excitability quelled by a spirit not his own, and chastened into strong purpose; and the bride, her young face the more lovely for the depth of enthusiasm restrained by awe and humility, as she stood without trembling or faltering, the strength of innocence expressed in the whole bearing of her slight figure in her white drapery. Around were the four sisterly bride’s-maids, their black dresses showing that these were still the twilight days of mourning, and that none would forget her, whose prayers might still bless their labour of love.

When Margaret Agatha May, on her husband’s arm, turned for a last look at the altar of her own church, “Fear not,” in evergreen letters, was the greeting she bore away.

Ethel was left at the Grange for the ensuing fortnight—a time of unusual leisure both to her and to Flora, which they both prized highly, for it taught them to know each other as they had never done before. Flora’s confidence to her aunt had been a good thing for her, though so partial; it opened the way for further unreserve to one who knew the circumstances better, and, as to dread of Ethel, that could seldom prevail in her presence, partly from long habit, partly from her deficiency of manner, and still more from her true humility and affection. Gradually she arrived at the perception of the history of her sister’s mind; understood what gloom had once overshadowed it; and how, since light had once shone upon her, she shrank not merely from the tasks that had become wearisome to her, but from the dread of losing among them her present peace.

“They are your duty,” argued Ethel. “Duty brings peace.”

“They were not,” said Flora.

“They are now,” said Ethel.

“Dinners and parties, empty talk and vain show,” said Flora languidly. “Are you come to their defence, Ethel? If you could guess how sick one gets of them, and how much worse it is for them not to be hateful! And to think of bringing my poor little girl up to the like, if she is spared!”

“If they are not duties, I would not do them,” said Ethel.

“Ethel,” cried her sister, raising herself from her couch eagerly, “I will say it to you! What should you think of George resigning his seat, and living in peace here?”

“Would he?” said Ethel.

“If I wished it.”

“But what would he do with himself?” said Ethel, not in too complimentary a strain.

“Yachting, farming, Cochin-Chinese—or something,” said Flora. “Anything not so wearing as this!”

“That abominable candidate of Tomkins’s would come in!” exclaimed Ethel. “Oh, Flora, that would be horrid!”

“That might be guarded against,” said Flora. “Perhaps Sir Henry—But oh! let us leave politics in peace while we can. I thought we should do some great good, but it is all a maze of confusion. It is so hard to know principles from parties, and everything goes wrong! It is of no use to contend with it!”

“It is never vain to contend with evil,” said Ethel.

“We are not generalising,” said Flora. “There is evil nearer home than the state of parties, and I can’t see that George’s being in Parliament—being what he is—is anything like the benefit to things in general—that it is temptation and plague to me, besides the risk of London life for the baby, now and hereafter.”

“I can’t say that I think it is,” said Ethel. “How nice it would be to have you here! I am so glad you are willing to give it up.”

“It would have been better to have given it up untasted—like Norman,” sighed Flora. “I will talk to George.”

“But, Flora,” said Ethel, a little startled, “you ought not to do such a thing without advice.”

“There will be worry enough before it is done!” sighed Flora. “No fear of that!”

“Stop a minute,” said Ethel, as if poor Flora could have done anything but lie still on her sofa. “I think you ought to consider well before you set it going.”

“Have not I longed for it day and night? It is an escape from peril for ourselves and our child.”

“I can’t be sure!” said Ethel. “It may be more wrong to make George desert the post which—”

“Which I thrust him into,” said Flora. “My father told me as much.”

“I did not mean you to say that! But it is a puzzle. It seems as if it were right to give up such things; yet, when I recollect the difficulty of carrying an election right at Stoneborough, I think papa would be very sorry. I don’t think his interest would bring in any sound man but his son-in-law; and George himself seems to like his parliamentary life better than anything else.”

“Yes,” said Flora hesitatingly; for she knew it was true—he liked to think himself important, and it gave him something to think of, and regular occupation—not too active or onerous; but she could not tell Ethel what she herself felt; that all she could do for him could not prevent him from being held cheap by the men among whom she had placed him.

“Then,” said Ethel, as she heard her affirmative, “I don’t think it is for his dignity, for you to put him into Parliament to please you and then take him out to please you.”

“I’ll take care of his dignity,” said Flora shortly.

“I know you would do it well—”

“I am sick of doing things well!” said poor Flora. “You little know how I dread reading up all I must read presently! I shall lose all I have scarcely gained. I cannot find peace any way, but by throwing down the load I gave my peace for.”

“Whether this is truth or fancy,” said Ethel thoughtfully. “If you would ask some one competent.”

“Don’t you know there are some things one cannot ask?” said Flora. “I don’t know why I spoke to you! Ah! come in! Why, George, that is a finer egg than ever,” as he entered with a Shanghai egg in each hand, for her to mark with the date when it had been laid. Poultry was a new hobby, and Ethel had been hearing, in her tete-a-tete dinners with George, a great deal about the perfections of the hideous monsters that had obtained fabulous prices. They had been the best resource for conversation; but she watched, with something between vexation and softness, how Flora roused herself to give her full attention and interest to his prosing about his pets, really pleased as it seemed; and, at last, encouraging him actually to fetch his favourite cock to show her; when she went through the points of perfection of the ungainly mass of feathers, and did not at all allow Ethel to laugh at the unearthly sounds of disapproval which handling elicited.

“And this is our senator!” thought Ethel. “I wonder whether Honorius’s hen was a Shanghai! Poor Flora is right—it is poor work to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! but, putting him into the place is one thing, taking him out another. I wish she would take advice; but I never knew her do that, except as a civil way of communicating her intentions. However, she is not quite what she was! Poor dear! Aunt Flora will never believe what a beautiful creature she used to be! It seems wrong to think of her going back to that horrid London; but I can’t judge. For my part, I’d rather do work, than no work for George, and he is a good, kind-hearted fellow after all! I won’t be a crab!”

So Ethel did her best, and said the cock had a bright eye—all she could say for him—and George instructed her to admire the awkward legs, and invited her to a poultry show, at Whitford, in two days’ time—and they sent him away to continue his consultations with the poultry woman, which pullets should be preferred as candidates for a prize.

“Meta set him upon this,” said Flora. “I hope you will go, Ethel. You see he can be very happy here.”

“Still,” said Ethel, “the more I think, the more sure I am that you ought to ask advice.”

“I have asked yours,” said Flora, as if it were a great effort. “You don’t know what to say—I shall do what I see to be the only way to rest.”

“I do know what to say,” said Ethel; “and that is, do as the Prayer-book tells you, in any perplexity.”

“I am not perplexed,” said Flora.

“Don’t say so. This is either the station to which God has called you, or it is not.”

“He never called me to it.”

“But you don’t know whether you ought to leave it. If you ought not, you would be ten times more miserable. Go to Richard, Flora—he belongs to you as much as I—he has authority besides.”

“Richard!”

“He is the clearest of us all in practical matters,” said Ethel, preventing what she feared would be disparaging. “I don’t mean only that you should ask him about this Parliament matter alone; but I am sure you would be happier and more settled if you talked things over with him before—before you go to church.”

“You don’t know what you propose.”

“I do,” said Ethel, growing bolder. “You have been going all this time by feeling. You have never cleared up, and got to the bottom of, your troubles.”

“I could not talk to any one.”

“Not to any one but a clergyman. Now, to enter on such a thing is most averse to your nature; and I do believe that, for that very reason, it would be what would do you most good. You say you have recovered sense of—Oh, Flora! I can’t talk of what you have gone through; but if you have only a vague feeling that seems as if lying still would be the only way to keep it, I don’t think it can be altogether sound, or the ‘quiet conscience’ that is meant.”

“Oh, Ethel! Ethel! I have never told you what I have undergone, since I knew my former quietness of conscience was but sleep! I have gone on in agony, with the sense of hypocrisy and despair, because I was afraid, for George’s sake, to do otherwise.”

Ethel felt herself utterly powerless to advise; and, after a kind sound of sympathy, sat shocked, pondering on what none could answer; whether this were, indeed, what poor Flora imagined, or whether it had been a holding-fast to the thread through the darkness. The proud reserve was the true evil, and Ethel prayed and trusted it might give way.

She went very amiably to Whitford with George, and gained great credit with him, for admiring the prettiest speckled Hamburgh present; indeed, George was becoming very fond of “poor Ethel,” as he still called her, and sometimes predicted that she would turn out a fine figure of a woman after all.

Ethel heard, on her return, that Richard had been there; and three days after, when Flora was making arrangements for going to church, a moment of confidence came over her, and she said, “I did it, Ethel! I have spoken to Richard.”

“I am so glad!”

“You were right. He is as clear as he is kind,” said Flora; “he showed me that, for George’s sake, I must bear with my present life, and do the best I can with it, unless some leading comes for an escape; and that the glare, and weariness, and being spoken well of, must be taken as punishment for having sought after these things.”

“I was afraid he would say so,” said Ethel. “But you will find happiness again, Flora dear.”

“Scarcely—before I come to Margaret and to my child,” sighed Flora. “I suppose it was Mercy that would not let me follow when I wished it. I must work till the time of rest comes!”

“And your own little Margaret will cheer you!” said Ethel, more hopefully, as she saw Flora bend over her baby with a face that might one day be bright.

She trusted that patient continuance in well-doing would one day win peace and joy, even in the dreary world that poor Flora had chosen.

For her own part, Ethel found Flora’s practical good sense and sympathy very useful, in her present need of the counsel she had always had from Margaret.

The visit to Flora lasted a fortnight, and Ethel was much benefited by the leisure for reading and the repose after the long nursing; though, before the end, her refreshed energies began to pine for Daisy and her hymns, for Aubrey and his Virgil, for Cherry and her scholars, and, above all, for her father; for, come as often as he would, it was not papa at home.

On the other hand, Mary was at a loss for Ethel every hour; Richard was putting off his affairs till Ethel should come home; Miss Bracy and Blanche longed for her to relieve the schoolroom from the children; Aubrey could not perform a lesson in comfort with any one else—never ended a sum without groaning for Ethel, and sometimes rode to Abbotstoke for the mere purpose of appealing to her; in short, no one could get on without her, and the doctor least of all.

Dr. Spencer, and Mr. Wilmot, and all his sons and daughters, had done their best for him; but, in spite of his satisfaction at seeing the two sisters so happy together, he could not help missing Ethel every minute, as the very light of his home; and when, at last, Flora brought her back, she was received with uproarious joy by Aubrey and Daisy, while the rest of the household felt a revival and refreshment of spirits—the first drawing aside of the cloud that had hung over the winter. The pearl of their home might be missed every hour, but they could thankfully rest in the trust that she was a jewel stored up in safety and peace, to shine as a star for evermore.

A few weeks more, and there were other partings, sad indeed, yet cheery. Dr. May told Mrs. Arnott that, though he grieved that so much of sorrow had come to dim her visit, he could not but own that it was the very time when her coming could be most comforting; and this, as she truly said, was satisfaction enough for her, besides that she could not rejoice enough that her arrival had been in time to see their dear Margaret. She should carry away most precious recollections; and she further told Dr. Spencer that she was far more comfortable about her brother-in-law, than if she had only known him in his youthful character, which had seemed so little calculated to bear sorrow or care. She looked at him now only to wonder at, and reverence the change that had been gradually wrought by the affections placed above.

Norman and his wife went with her—the one grave but hopeful, the other trying to wile away the pain of parting, by her tearful mirth—making all sorts of odd promises and touching requests, between jest and earnest, and clinging to the last to her dear father-in-law, as if the separation from him were the hardest of all.

“Well, humming-birds must be let fly!” said he at last. “Ah! ha! Meta, are they of no use?”

“Stay till you hear!” said Meta archly—then turning back once more. “Oh! how I have thanked you, Ethel, for those first hints you gave me how to make my life real. If I had only sat still and wished, instead of trying what could be done as I was, how unhappy I should have been!”

“Come, take your sprite away, Norman, if you don’t want me to keep her for good! God bless you, my dear children! Good-bye! Who knows but when Doctor Tom sets up in my place, Ethel and I may come out and pay you a visit?”

It had all been over for some weeks, and the home-party had settled down again into what was likely to be their usual course, excepting in the holidays, to which the doctor looked forward with redoubled interest, as Tom was fast becoming a very agreeable and sensible companion; for his moodiness had been charmed away by Meta, and principle was teaching him true command of temper. He seemed to take his father as a special charge, bequeathed to him by Norman, and had already acquired that value and importance at home which comes of the laying aside of all self-importance.

It was a clear evening in March, full of promise of spring, and Ethel was standing in the church porch at Cocksmoor, after making some visits in the parish, waiting for Richard, while the bell was ringing for the Wednesday evening service, and the pearly tints of a cloudless sunset were fading into the western sky.

Ethel began to wonder where Norman might be looking at the sun dipping into the western sea, and thence arose before her the visions of her girlhood, when she had first dreamt of a church on Cocksmoor, and of Richard ministering before a willing congregation. So strange did the accomplishment seem, that she even touched the stone to assure herself of the reality; and therewith came intense thanksgiving that the work had been taken out of her hands, to be the more fully blessed and accomplished—that is, as far as the building went; as to the people, there was far more labour in store, and the same Hand must be looked to for the increase.

For herself, Ethel looked back and looked on. Norman Ogilvie’s marriage seemed to her to have fixed her lot in life, and what was that lot? Home and Cocksmoor had been her choice, and they were before her. Home! but her eyes had been opened to see that earthly homes may not endure, nor fill the heart. Her dear father might, indeed, claim her full-hearted devotion, but, to him, she was only one of many. Norman was no longer solely hers; and she had begun to understand that the unmarried woman must not seek undivided return of affection, and must not set her love, with exclusive eagerness, on aught below, but must be ready to cease in turn to be first with any. Ethel was truly a mother to the younger ones; but she faced the probability that they would find others to whom she would have the second place. To love each heartily, to do her utmost for each in turn, and to be grateful for their fondness, was her call; but never to count on their affection as her sole right and inalienable possession. She felt that this was the probable course, and that she might look to becoming comparatively solitary in the course of years—then tried to realise what her lonely life might be, but broke off smiling at herself, “What is that to me? What will it be when it is over? My course and aim are straight on, and He will direct my paths. I don’t know that I shall be alone, and I shall have the memory—the communion with them, if not their presence. Some one there must be to be loved and helped, and the poor for certain. Only I must have my treasure above, and when I think what is there, and of—Oh! that bliss of being perfectly able to praise—with no bad old self to mar the full joy of giving thanks, and blessing, and honour, and power! Need I dread a few short years?—and they have not begun yet—perhaps they won’t—Oh! here is actually papa coming home this way! how delightful! Papa, are you coming to church here?”

“Ay, Ethel. That weathercock of Spencer’s is a magnet, I believe! It draws me from all parts of the country to hear Richard in St. Andrew’s Church.”