Meta went on with her own thoughts, on the connection between worship and good works, how the one leads to the other, and how praise with pure lips is, after all, the great purpose of existence.-- Her last thought she spoke aloud.
'I suppose everything, our own happiness and all, are given to us to turn into praise,' she said.
'Yes--' echoed Norman; but as if his thoughts were not quite with hers, or rather in another part of the same subject; then recalling himself, 'Happy such as can do so.'
'If one only could--' said Meta.
'You can--don't say otherwise,' exclaimed Norman; 'I know, at least, that you and my father can.'
'Dr. May does so, more than any one I know,' said Meta.
'Yes,' said Norman again; 'it is his secret of joy. To him, it is never, I am half sick of shadows.'
'To him they are not shadows, but foretastes,' said Meta. Silence again; and when she spoke, she said, 'I have always thought it must be such a happiness to have power of any kind that can be used in direct service, or actual doing good.'
'No,' said Norman. 'Whatever becomes a profession, becomes an unreality.'
'Surely not, in becoming a duty,' said Meta.
'Not for all,' he answered; 'but where the fabric erected by ourselves, in the sight of the world, is but an outer case, a shell of mere words, blown up for the occasion, strung together as mere language; then, self-convicted, we shrink within the husk, and feel our own worthlessness and hypocrisy.'
'As one feels in reproving the school children for behaving ill at church?' said Meta.
'You never felt anything approaching to it!' said Norman. 'To know oneself to be such a deception, that everything else seems a delusion too!'
'I don't know whether that is metaphysical,' said Meta, 'but I am sure I don't understand it. One must know oneself to be worse than one knows any one else to be.'
'I could not wish you to understand,' said Norman; and yet he seemed impelled to go on; for, after a hesitating silence, he added, 'When the wanderer in the desert fears that the spring is but a mirage; or when all that is held dear is made hazy or distorted by some enchanter, what do you think are the feelings, Meta?'
'It must be dreadful,' she said, rather bewildered; 'but he may know it is a delusion, if he can but wake. Has he not always a spell, a charm?--'
'What is the spell?' eagerly said Norman, standing still.
'Believe--' said Meta, hardly knowing how she came to choose the words.
'I believe!' he repeated. 'What--when we go beyond the province of reason--human, a thing of sense after all! How often have I so answered. But Meta, when a man has been drawn, in self-sufficient security, to look into a magic mirror, and cannot detach his eyes from the confused, misty scene--where all that had his allegiance appears shattered, overthrown, like a broken image, or at least unable to endure examination, then--'
'Oh, Norman, is that the trial to any one here? I thought old Oxford was the great guardian nurse of truth! I am sure she cannot deal in magic mirrors or such frightful things. Do you know you are talking like a very horrible dream?'
'I believe I am in one,' said Norman.
'To be sure you are. Wake!' said Meta, looking up, smiling in his face. 'You have read yourself into a maze, that's all--what Mary calls, muzzling your head; you don't really think all this, and when you get into the country, away from books, you will forget it. One look at our dear old purple Welsh hills will blow away all the mists!'
'I ought not to have spoken in this manner,' said Norman sadly. 'Forget it, Meta.'
'Forget it! Of course I will. It is all nonsense, and meant to be forgotten,' said Meta, laughing. 'You will own that it is by-and- by.'
He gave a deep sigh.
'Don't think I am unfeeling,' she said; 'but I know it is all a fog up from books, books, books--I should like to drive it off with a good fresh gust of wind! Oh! I wish those yellow lilies would grow in our river!'
Meta talked away gaily for the rest of the walk. She was anything but unfeeling, but she had a confidence in Norman that forbade her to see anything here but one of his variations of spirits, which always sank in the hour of triumph. She put forth her brightness to enliven him, and, in their subsequent tete-a-tetes, she avoided all that could lead to a renewal of this conversation. Ethel would not have rested till it had been fought out. Meta thought it so imaginary, that it had better die for want of the aliment of words; certainly, hers could not reach an intellect like his, and she would only soothe and amuse him. Dr. May, mind-curer as well as body-curer, would soon be here, to put the climax to the general joy and watch his own son.
He did arrive; quite prepared to enjoy, giving an excellent account of both homes; Mr. Rivers very well, and the Wilmots taking care of him, and Margaret as comfortable as usual, Mary making a most important and capable little housekeeper, Miss Bracy as good as possible. He talked as if they had all nourished the better for Ethel's absence, but he had evidently missed her greatly, as he showed, without knowing it, by his instant eagerness to have her to himself. Even Norman, prizeman as he was, was less wanted. There was proud affection, eager congratulation, for him, but it was Ethel to whom he wanted to tell everything that had passed during her absence--whom he treated as if they were meeting after a tedious separation.
They dined rather early, and went out afterwards, to walk down the High Street to Christchurch Meadow. Norman and Ethel had been anxious for this; they thought it would give their father the best idea of the tout ensemble of Oxford, and were not without hopes of beating him by his own confession, in that standing fight between him and his sons, as to the beauties of Oxford and Cambridge--a fight in which, hitherto, they had been equally matched--neither partisan having seen the rival University.
Flora stayed at home; she owned herself fairly tired by her arduous duties of following the two young ladies about, and was very glad to give her father the keeping of them. Dr. May held out his arm to Ethel--Norman secured his peculiar property. Ethel could have preferred that it should be otherwise--Norman would have no companion but George Rivers; how bored he would be!
All through the streets, while she was telling her father the names of the buildings, she was not giving her whole attention; she was trying to guess, from the sounds behind, whether Mr. Ogilvie were accompanying them. They entered the meadows--Norman turned round, with a laugh, to defy the doctor to talk of the Cam, on the banks of the Isis. The party stood still--the other two gentlemen came up. They amalgamated again--all the Oxonians conspiring to say spiteful things of the Cam, and Dr. May making a spirited defence, in which Ethel found herself impelled to join.
In the wide gravelled path, they proceeded in threes; George attached himself to his sister and Norman. Mr. Ogilvie came to Ethel's other side, and began to point out all the various notabilities. Ethel was happy again; her father was so much pleased and amused, with him, and he with her father, that it was a treat to look on.
Presently Dr. May, as usual, always meeting with acquaintances, fell in with a county neighbour, and Ethel had another pleasant aside, until her father claimed her, and Mr. Ogilvie was absorbed among another party, and lost to her sight.
He came to tea, but, by that time, Dr. May had established himself in the chair which had hitherto been appropriated to her cousin, a chair that cut her nook off from the rest of the world, and made her the exclusive possession of the occupant. There was a most interesting history for her to hear, of a meeting with the Town Council, which she had left pending, when Dr. May had been battling to save the next presentation of the living from being sold.
Few subjects could affect Ethel more nearly, yet she caught herself missing the thread of his discourse, in trying to hear what Mr. Ogilvie was saying to Flora about a visit to Glenbracken.
The time came for the two Balliol men to take their leave. Norman May had been sitting very silent all the evening, and Meta, who was near him, respected his mood. When he said good-night, he drew Ethel outside the door. 'Ethel,' he said, 'only one thing: do ask my father not to put on his spectacles to-morrow.'
'Very well,' said Ethel, half smiling; 'Richard did not mind them.'
'Richard has more humility--I shall break down if he looks at me! I wish you were all at home.'
'Thank you.'
The other Norman came out of the sitting-room at the moment, and heard the last words.
'Never mind,' said he to Ethel, 'I'll take care of him. He shall comport himself as if you were all at Nova Zembla. A pretty fellow to talk of despising fame, and then get a fit of stage-fright!'
'Well, good-night,' said Norman, sighing. 'It will be over to- morrow; only remember the spectacles.'
