the repose of home sameness, nor how she had finally sent to Paris for the paper that looked so quiet, but was so exquisitely finished, that the whole room had a new air of refinement.
The most notable novelty was a water-coloured sketch, a labour of love from the busy hands in New Zealand, which had stolen a few hours from their many tasks to send Dr. May the presentment of his namesake grandson. Little Dickie stood before them, a true son of the humming-bird sprite, delicately limbed and featured, and with elastic springiness, visible even in the pencilled outline. The dancing dark eyes were all Meta’s, though the sturdy clasp of the hands, and the curl that hung over the brow, brought back the reflection of Harry’s baby days.
It would have been a charming picture, even if it had not been by Meta’s pencil, and of Norman’s child, and it chained Ethel for more than one interval of longing loving study.
Tom interrupted her in one of these contemplations. ‘Poor Flora,’ he said, with more feeling than he usually allowed to affect his voice, ‘that picture is a hard trial to her. I caught her looking at it for full ten minutes, and at last she turned away with her eyes full of tears.’
‘I do not wonder,’ said Ethel. ‘There is a certain likeness to that poor little Leonora, and I think Flora misses her more every year.’
‘Such a child as Margaret is just the thing to cause the other to be missed.’
‘What do you think of Margaret this time?’ said Ethel, for Tom alone ever durst seriously touch on the undefined impression that all entertained of Flora’s only child.
‘If Flora were only silly about her,’ said Tom, ‘one might have some hope; but unluckily she is as judicious there as in everything else, and the child gets more deplorable every year. She has got the look of deformity, and yet she is not deformed; and the queer sullen ways of deficiency, but she has more wit than her father already, and more cunning.’
‘As long as there is a mind to work on, one hopes’ said Ethel.
‘I could stand her better if she were foolish!’ exclaimed Tom, ‘but I can’t endure to see her come into the room to be courted by every one, and be as cross as she dares before her mother. Behind Flora’s back, I don’t know which she uses worst, her father or her grandfather. I came down upon little Miss at last for her treatment of the Doctor, and neither he nor Rivers have forgiven me.’
‘Poor child! I don’t believe she has ever known a moment’s thorough health or comfort! I always hope that with Flora’s patience and management she may improve.’
‘Pshaw, Ethel! she will always be a misfortune to herself and everybody else.’
‘I have faith in good coming out of misfortunes.’
‘Illustrated, I suppose, by ravings about your young Ward. Mary is crazy about his sister, and the Doctor lunatic as to the brother, who will soon kick at him for his pains.’
‘I own to thinking Leonard capable of great things.’
Tom made a grimace equal to what Ethel could do in that way, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and philosophically observed, ‘Behold the effects of patronage! Blind Cupid is nothing to him.’
Ethel let it pass, caring too much for Leonard to set him up as a mark for Tom’s satire, which was as different from Aubrey’s as quinine from orange-peel, though properly used, it was a bracing tonic, such as she often found wholesome. A cynical younger brother is a most valuable possession to a woman who has taken a certain position in her own world.
Tom was a sterling character, highly and deeply principled, though not demonstrative, and showing his Scots descent. None of the brothers had been extravagant, but Tom, with the income of his lately achieved fellowship, performed feats of economy, such as attaining to the purchase of an ultra perfect microscope, and he was consistently industrious, so exactly measuring his own powers that to undertake was with him to succeed, and no one suffered anxiety on his account. As Dr. Spencer said, he was as sure to fall on his legs as a sandy cat, and so nobody cared for him. At home he was sufficient to himself, properly behaved to his father, civil to Richard, unmerciful in ridicule, but merciful in dominion over the rest, except Ethel, whom he treated as an equal, able to retort in kind, reserving for her his most highly-flavoured sallies, and his few and distant approaches to such confidence as showed her how little she knew him. His father esteemed but did not ‘get on with’ him, and his chief and devoted adherent was Aubrey, to whom he was always kind and helpful. In person Tom was tall and well- made, of intelligent face, of which his spectacles seemed a natural feature, well-moulded fine-grained hand, and dress the perfection of correctness, though the precision, and dandyism had been pruned away.
Ethel would have preferred that Leonard and Averil should not have walked in on the Saturday after her return, just when Tom had spread his microscope apparatus over the table, and claimed Mary’s assistance in setting up objects; and she avoided his eye when Mary and Averil did what he poetically called rushing into each other’s arms, whilst she bestowed her greetings on Leonard and Mab.
‘Then she may come in?’ said Leonard. ‘Henry has banished her from the drawing-room, and we had much ado to get her allowed even in the schoolroom.’
‘It is so tiresome,’ said his sister, ‘just one of Henry’s fancies.’ Ethel, thinking this disloyal, remarked that those who disliked dogs in the house could not bear them, and did not wonder that Tom muttered ‘Original.’
‘But such a little darling as this!’ cried Averil, ‘and after Mrs. Ernescliffe had been so kind. Mary, you must see how clever she is. Leonard is teaching her to play on the piano.’
‘I congratulate you,’ quietly said Tom; and somehow Ethel felt that those three words were a satire on her ‘capable of great things;’ while Leonard drew up, and Averil coloured, deferring the exhibition of Mab’s accomplishments till ‘another time,’ evidently meaning out of Tom’s presence.
‘Aubrey is gone to the Grange with papa,’ Ethel said, glad to lead away from Mab.
‘He told me he was going,’ said Leonard, ‘but he said you would be at home.’
Ethel knew that the intonation of that ‘you’ had curled Tom’s lip with mischief, and dreading that Leonard should discover and resent his mood, she said, ‘We think one of your sea eggs has got among ours; will you come to the schoolroom and see?’
And leaving Tom to tease and be bored by the young ladies, she led the way to the schoolroom, where Aubrey’s fossils, each in its private twist of paper, lay in confusion on the floor, whence they were in course of being transferred to the shelf of a cupboard.
