'Dear me, Norman, I could say ten thousand things, only I must not tell you what mine are, as yours are not done.'
'No, don't,' said Norman decidedly.
'Did you read the description of them in the Quarterly? I am sure you might get some ideas there. Shall I find it for you? It is in an old number.'
'Well, do; thank you.'
He rested listlessly on the sofa while his sister rummaged in a chiffonier. At last she found the article, and eagerly read him the description of the strange forms of the coral animals, and the beauties of their flower-like feelers and branching fabrics. It would once have delighted him, but his first comment was, 'Nasty little brutes!' However, the next minute he thanked her, took the book, and said he could hammer something out of it, though it was too bad to give such an unclassical subject. At dusk he left off, saying he should get it done at night, his senses would come then, and he should be glad to sit up.
'Only three weeks to the holidays,' said Ethel, trying to be cheerful; but his assent was depressing, and she began to fear that Christmas would only make them more sad.
Mary did not keep Tom's secret so inviolably, but that, while they were dressing for tea, she revealed to Ethel where Harry was gone. He was not yet returned, though his father and Richard were come in, and the sisters were at once in some anxiety on his account, and doubt whether they ought to let papa know of his disobedience.
Flora and Ethel, who were the first in the drawing-room, had a consultation.
'I should have told mamma directly,' said Flora.
'He never did so,' sighed Ethel; 'things never went wrong then.'
'Oh, yes, they did; don't you remember how naughty Harry was about climbing the wall, and making faces at Mrs. Richardson's servants?'
'And how ill I behaved the first day of last Christmas holidays?'
'She knew, but I don't think she told papa.'
'Not that we knew of, but I believe she did tell him everything, and I think, Flora, he ought to know everything, especially now. I never could bear the way the Mackenzies used to have of thinking their parents must be like enemies, and keeping secrets from them.'
'They were always threatening each other, 'I'll tell mamma,'' said Flora, 'and calling us tell-tales because we told our own dear mamma everything. But it is not like that now--I neither like to worry papa, nor to bring Harry into disgrace--besides, Tom and Mary meant it for a secret.'
'Papa would not be angry with him if we told him it was a secret,' said Ethel; 'I wish Harry would come in. There's the door--oh! it is only you.'
'Whom did you expect?' said Richard, entering.
The sisters looked at each other, and Ethel, after an interval, explained their doubts about Harry.
'He is come in,' said Richard; 'I saw him running up to his own room, very muddy.'
'Oh, I'm glad! But do you think papa ought to hear it? I don't know what's to be done. 'Tis the children's secret,' said Flora.
'It will never do to have him going out with those boys continually,' said Ethel--'Harvey Anderson close by all the holidays!'
'I'll try what I can do with him,' said Richard. 'Papa had better not hear it now, at any rate. He is very tired and sad this evening! and his arm is painful again, so we must not worry him with histories of naughtiness among the children.'
'No,' said Ethel decidedly, 'I am glad you were there, Ritchie; I never should have thought of one time being better than another.'
'Just like Ethel!' said Flora, smiling.
'Why should not you learn?' said Richard gently.
'I can't,' said Ethel, in a desponding way.
'Why not? You are much sharper than most people, and, if you tried, you would know those things much better than I do, as you know how to learn history.'
'It is quite a different sort of cleverness,' said Flora. 'Recollect Sir Isaac Newton, or Archimedes.'
'Then you must have both sorts,' said Ethel, 'for you can do things nicely, and yet you learn very fast.'
'Take care, Ethel, you are singeing your frock! Well, I really don't think you can help those things!' said Flora. 'Your short sight is the reason of it, and it is of no use to try to mend it.'
'Don't tell her so,' said Richard. 'It can't be all short sight--it is the not thinking. I do believe that if Ethel would think, no one would do things so well. Don't you remember the beautiful perspective drawing she made of this room for me to take to Oxford? That was very difficult, and wanted a great deal of neatness and accuracy, so why should she not be neat and accurate in other things? And I know you can read faces, Ethel--why don't you look there before you speak?'
'Ah! before instead of after, when I only see I have said something malapropos,' said Ethel.
'I must go and see about the children,' said Flora; 'if the tea comes while I am gone, will you make it, Ritchie?'
'Flora despairs of me,' said Ethel.
'I don't,' said Richard. 'Have you forgotten how to put in a pin yet?'
'No; I hope not.'
'Well, then, see if you can't learn to make tea; and, by-the-bye, Ethel, which is the next christening Sunday?'
'The one after next, surely. The first of December is Monday--yes, to-morrow week is the next.'
'Then I have thought of something; it would cost eighteenpence to hire Joliffe's spring-cart, and we might have Mrs. Taylor and the twins brought to church in it. Should you like to walk to Cocksmoor and settle it?'
'Oh yes, very much indeed. What a capital thought. Margaret said you would know how to manage.'
'Then we will go the first fine day papa does not want me.'
'I wonder if I could finish my purple frocks. But here's the tea. Now, Richard, don't tell me to make it. I should do something wrong, and Flora will never forgive you.'
Richard would not let her off. He stood over her, counted her shovelfuls of tea, and watched the water into the teapot--he superintended her warming the cups, and putting a drop into each saucer. 'Ah!' said Ethel, with a concluding sigh, 'it makes one hotter than double equations!'
It was all right, as Flora allowed with a slightly superior smile. She thought Richard would never succeed in making a notable or elegant woman of Ethel, and it was best that the two sisters should take different lines. Flora knew that, though clever and with more accomplishments, she could not surpass Ethel in intellectual attainments, but she was certainly far more valuable in the house, and had been proved to have just the qualities in which her sister was most deficient. She did not relish hearing that Ethel wanted nothing but attention to be more than her equal, and she thought Richard mistaken. Flora's remembrance of their time of distress was less unmixedly wretched than it was with the others, for she knew she had done wonders.
The next day Norman told Ethel that he had got on very well with the verses, and finished them off late at night. He showed them to her before taking them to school on Monday morning, and Ethel thought they were the best he had ever written. There was too much spirit and poetical beauty for a mere schoolboy task, and she begged for the foul copy to show it to her father. 'I have not got it,' said Norman. 'The foul copy was not like these; but when I was writing them out quite late, it was all I don't know how. Flora's music was in my ears, and the room seemed to get larger, and like an ocean cave; and when the candle flickered, 'twas like the green glowing light of the sun through the waves.'
'As it says here,' said Ethel.
'And the words all came to me of themselves in beautiful flowing Latin, just right, as if it was anybody but myself doing it, and they ran off my pen in red and blue and gold, and all sorts of colours; and fine branching zig- zagging stars, like what the book described, only stranger, came dancing and radiating round my pen and the candle. I could hardly believe the verses would scan by daylight, but I can't find a mistake. Do you try them again.'
Ethel scanned. 'I see nothing wrong,' she said, 'but it seems a shame to begin scanning Undine's verses, they are too pretty. I wish I could copy them. It must have been half a dream.'
'I believe it was; they don't seem like my own.'
