'I declare!' said Flora composedly, 'you are as bad as the children at the infant school, crying to go home the instant they see their mothers!'
'No, Flora, but I must go. Thank you for all this pleasure, but I shall have heard Norman's poem, and then I must go.'
Flora turned her round, looked in her face kindly, kissed her, and said, 'My dear, never mind, it will all come right again--only, don't run away.'
'What will come right?'
'Any little misunderstanding with Norman Ogilvie.'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Ethel, becoming scarlet.
'My dear, you need not try to hide it. I see that you have got into a fright. You have made a discovery, but that is no reason for running away.'
'Yes it is!' said Ethel firmly, not denying the charge, though reddening more than ever at finding her impression confirmed.
'Poor child! she is afraid!' said Flora tenderly; 'but I will take care of you, Ethel. It is everything delightful. You are the very girl for such a heros de Roman, and it has embellished you more than all my Paris fineries.'
'Hush, Flora! We ought not to talk in this way, as if--'
'As if he had done more than walk with, and talk with, nobody else! How he did hate papa last night. I had a great mind to call papa off, in pity to him.'
'Don't, Flora. If there were anything in it, it would not be proper to think of it, so I am going home to prevent it.' The words were spoken with averted face and heaving breath.
'Proper?' said Flora. 'The Mays are a good old family, and our own grandmother was an honourable Ogilvie herself. A Scottish baron, very poor too, has no right to look down--'
'They shall not look down. Flora, it is of no use to talk. I cannot be spared from home, and I will not put myself in the way of being tempted to forsake them all.'
'Tempted!' said Flora, laughing. 'Is it such a wicked thing?'
'Not in others, but it would be wrong in me, with such a state of things as there is at home.'
'I do not suppose he would want you for some years to come. He is only two-and-twenty. Mary will grow older.'
'Margaret will either be married, or want constant care. Flora, I will not let myself be drawn from them.'
'You may think so now; but it would be for their real good to relieve papa of any of us. If we were all to think as you do, how should we live? I don't know--for papa told me there will be barely ten thousand pounds, besides the houses, and what will that be among ten? I am not talking of yourself, but think of the others!'
'I know papa will not be happy without me, and I will not leave him,' repeated Ethel, not answering the argument.
Flora changed her ground, and laughed. 'We are getting into the heroics,' she said, 'when it would be very foolish to break up our plans, only because we have found a pleasant cousin. There is nothing serious in it, I dare say. How silly of us to argue on such an idea!'
Meta came in before Flora could say more, but Ethel, with burning cheeks, repeated, 'It will be safer!'
Ethel had, meantime, been dressed by her sister; and, as Bellairs came to adorn Meta, and she could have no solitude, she went downstairs, thinking she heard Norman's step, and hoping to judge of his mood.
She entered the room with an exclamation, 'Oh, Norman!'
'At your service!' said the wrong Norman, looking merrily up from behind a newspaper.
'Oh, I beg your pardon; I thought--'
'Your thoughts were quite right,' he said, smiling. 'Your brother desires me to present his respects to his honoured family, and to inform them that his stock of assurance is likely to be diminished by the pleasure of their company this morning.'
'How is he?' asked Ethel anxiously.
'Pretty fair. He has blue saucers round his eyes, as he had before he went up for his little go.'
'Oh, I know them,' said Ethel.
'Very odd,' continued her cousin; 'when the end always is, that he says he has the luck of being set on in the very place he knows best. But I think it has expended itself in a sleepless night, and I have no fears, when he comes to the point.'
'What is he doing?'
'Writing to his brother Harry. He said it was the day for the Pacific mail, and that Harry's pleasure would be the best of it.'
'Ah!' said Ethel, glancing towards the paper, 'is there any naval intelligence?'
He looked; and while she was thinking whether she ought not to depart, he exclaimed, in a tone that startled her, 'Ha! No. Is your brother's ship the Alcestis?'
'Yes! Oh, what?'
'Nothing then, I assure you. See, it is merely this--she has not come into Sydney so soon as expected, which you knew before. That is all.'
'Let me see,' said the trembling Ethel.
It was no more than an echo of their unconfessed apprehensions, yet it seemed to give them a body; and Ethel's thoughts flew to Margaret. Her going home would be absolutely necessary now. Mr. Ogilvie kindly began to talk away her alarm, saying that there was still no reason for dread, mentioning the many causes that might have delayed the ship, and reassuring her greatly.
'But Norman!' she said.
'Ah! true. Poor May! He will break down to a certainty if he hears it. I will go at once, and keep guard over him, lest he should meet with this paper. But pray, don't be alarmed. I assure you there is no cause. You will have letters to-morrow.'
Ethel would fain have thrown off her finery and hurried home at once, but no one regarded the matter as she did. Dr. May agreed with Flora that it was no worse than before, and though they now thought Ethel's return desirable, on Margaret's account, it would be better not to add to the shock by a sudden arrival, especially as they took in no daily paper at home. So the theatre was not to be given up, nor any of the subsequent plans, except so far as regarded Ethel; and, this agreed, they started for the scene of action.
They were hardly in the street before they met the ubiquitous Mr. Ogilvie, saying that Cheviot, Norman's prompter, was aware of the report, and was guarding him, while he came to escort the ladies, through what he expressively called 'the bear fight.' Ethel resolutely adhered to her father, and her cousin took care of Meta, who had been clinging in a tiptoe manner to the point of her brother's high elbow, looking as if the crowd might easily brush off such a little fly, without his missing her.
Inch by inch, a step at a time, the ladies were landed in a crowd of their own sex, where Flora bravely pioneered; they emerged on their benches, shook themselves out, and seated themselves. There was the swarm of gay ladies around them, and beneath the area, fast being paved with heads, black, brown, gray, and bald, a surging living sea, where Meta soon pointed out Dr. May and George; the mere sight of such masses of people was curious and interesting, reminding Ethel of Cherry Elwood having once shocked her by saying the Whit-Monday club was the most beautiful sight in the whole year. And above! that gallery of trampling undergraduates, and more than trampling! Ethel and Meta could, at first, have found it in their hearts to be frightened at those thundering shouts, but the young ladies were usually of opinions so similar, that the louder grew the cheers, the more they laughed and exulted, so carried along that no cares could be remembered.
Making a way through the thronged area, behold the procession of scarlet doctors, advancing through the midst, till the red and black vice-chancellor sat enthroned in the centre, and the scarlet line became a semicircle, dividing the flower-garden of ladies from the black mass below.
Then came the introduction of the honorary doctors, one by one, with the Latin speech, which Ethel's companions unreasonably required her to translate to them, while she was using all her ears to catch a word or two, and her eyes to glimpse at the features of men of note.
By-and-by a youth made his appearance in the rostrum, and a good deal of Latin ensued, of which Flora hoped Ethel was less tired than she was. In time, however, Meta saw the spectacles removed, and George looking straight up, and she drew down her veil, and took hold of Flora's hand, and Ethel flushed like a hot coal. Nevertheless, all contrived to see a tall figure, with face much flushed, and hands moving nervously. The world was
