'I don't want pudding,' said Norman, slipping back his chair. 'May I, mamma?'
'To be sure you may;' and Norman, with a hand on the back of Ethel's chair, took a flying leap over his own, that set all the glasses ringing.
'Stop, stop! know what you are going after, sir,' cried his father. 'What will they know there of Cocksmoor, or the man whose wife has twins? You must ask for the accident in number five.'
'And oh, Norman, come back in time!' said Ethel.
'I'll be bound I'm back before Etheldred the Unready wants me,' he answered, bounding off with an elasticity that caused his mother to say the boy was made of india-rubber; and then putting his head in by the window to say, 'By-the-bye, if there's any pudding owing to me, that little chorister fellow of ours, Bill Blake, has got a lot of voracious brothers that want anything that's going. Tom and Blanche might take it down to 'em; I'm off! Hooray!' and he scampered headlong up the garden, prolonging his voice into a tremendous shout as he got farther off, leaving every one laughing, and his mother tenderly observing that he was going to run a quarter of a mile and back, and lose his only chance of pudding for the week--old Bishop Whichcote's rules contemplating no fare but daily mutton, to be bought at a shilling per sheep. A little private discussion ensued between Harry and Hector on the merits of the cakes at Ballhatchet's gate, and old Nelly's pies, which led the doctor to mourn over the loss of the tarts of the cranberries, that used to grow on Cocksmoor, before it was inhabited, and to be the delight of the scholars of Stoneborough, when he was one of them--and then to enchant the boys by relations of ancient exploits, especially his friend Spencer climbing up, and engraving a name on the top of the market cross, now no more-- swept away by the Town Council in a fit of improvement, which had for the last twenty years enraged the doctor at every remembrance of it. Perhaps at this moment his wife could hardly sympathise, when she thought of her boys emulating such deeds.
'Papa,' said Ethel, 'will you lend me a pair of spectacles for the walk?'
'And make yourself one, Ethel,' said Flora.
'I don't care--I want to see the view.'
'It is very bad for you, Ethel,' further added her mother; 'you will make your sight much shorter if you accustom your eyes to them.'
'Well, mamma, I never do wear them about the house.'
'For a very good reason,' said Margaret; 'because you haven't got them.'
'No, I believe Harry stole them in the holidays.'
'Stole them!' said the doctor; 'as if they weren't my property, unjustifiably appropriated by her!'
'They were that pair that you never could keep on, papa,' said Ethel--'no use at all to you. Come, do lend me them.'
'I'm sure I shan't let you wear them,' said Harry. 'I shan't go, if you choose to make yourself such an object.'
'Ah!' said the father, 'the boys thought it time to put a stop to it when it came to a caricature of the little doctor in petticoats.'
'Yes, in Norman's Lexicon,' said Ethel, 'a capital likeness of you, papa; but I never could get him to tell me who drew it.'
Nor did Ethel know that that caricature had been the cause of the black eye that Harry had brought home last summer. Harry returned, to protest that he would not join the walk, if she chose to be seen in the spectacles, while she undauntedly continued her petition, though answered that she would attract the attacks of the quarrymen, who would take her for an attenuated owl.
'I wish you were obliged to go about without them yourself, papa!' cried Ethel, 'and then you would know how tiresome it is not to see twice the length of your own nose.'
'Not such a very short allowance either,' said the doctor quaintly, and therewith the dinner concluded. There was apt to be a race between the two eldest girls for the honour of bringing down the baby; but this time their father strode up three steps at once, turned at the top of the first flight, made his bow to them, and presently came down with his little daughter in his arms, nodded triumphantly at the sisters, and set her down on her mother's lap.
'There, Maggie, you are complete, you old hen-and-chicken daisy. Can't you take her portrait in the character, Margaret?'
'With her pink cap, and Blanche and Aubrey as they are now, on each side?' said Flora.
'Margaret ought to be in the picture herself,' said Ethel. 'Fetch the artist in Norman's Lexicon, Harry.'
'Since he has hit off one of us so well,' said the doctor. 'Well! I'm off. I must see old Southern. You'll be ready by three? Good- bye, hen and chicken.'
'And I may have the spectacles?' said Ethel, running after him; 'you know I am an injured individual, for mamma won't let me carry baby about the house because I am so blind.'
'You are welcome to embellish yourself, as far as I am concerned.'
A general dispersion ensued, and only Mrs. May, Margaret, and the baby, remained.
'Oh, no!' sighed Margaret; 'you can't be the hen-and-chicken daisy properly, without all your chickens. It is the first christening we ever had without our all being there.'
'It was best not to press it, my dear,' said her mother. 'Your papa would have had his thoughts turned to the disappointment again and it makes Richard himself so unhappy to see his vexation, that I believe it is better not to renew it.'
'But to miss him for so long!' said Margaret. 'Perhaps it is best, 'for it is very miserable when papa is sarcastic and sharp, and he cannot understand it, and takes it as meaning so much more than it really does, and grows all the more frightened and diffident. I cannot think what he would do without you to encourage him.'
'Or you, you good sister,' said her mother, smiling. 'If we could only teach him not to mind being laughed at, and to have some confidence in himself, he and papa would get on together.'
'It is very hard,' cried Margaret, almost indignantly, 'that papa won't believe it, when he does his best.'
'I don't think papa can bear to bring himself to believe that it is his best.'
'He is too clever himself to see how other people can be slow,' said Margaret; 'and yet'--the tears came into her eyes--'I cannot bear to think of his telling Richard it was no use to think of being a clergyman, and he had better turn carpenter at once, just because he failed in his examination.'
'My dear, I wish you would forget that,' said Mrs. May. 'You know papa sometimes says more than he means, and he was excessively vexed and disappointed. I know he was pleased with Ritchie's resolve not to come home again till he had passed, and it is best that it should not be broken.'
'The whole vacation, studying so hard, and this christening!' said Margaret; 'it is treating him as if he had done wrong. I do believe Mr. Ernescliffe thinks he has--for papa always turns away the conversation if his name is mentioned! I wish you would explain it, mamma; I can't bear that.'
'If I can,' said Mrs. May, rather pleased that Margaret had taken on herself this vindication of her favourite brother her father's expense. 'But, after all, Margaret, I never feel quite sure that poor Ritchie does exert himself to the utmost, he is too desponding to make the most of himself.'
'And the more vexed papa is, the worse it grows!' said Margaret. 'It is provoking, though. How I do wish sometimes to give Ritchie a jog, when there is some stumbling-block that he sticks fast at. Don't you remember those sums, and those declensions? When he is so clear and sensible about practical matters too--anything but learning--I cannot think why--and it is very mortifying!'
'I dare say it is very good for us not to have our ambition gratified,' said her mother. 'There are so many troubles worse than these failures, that it only shows how happy we are that we should take them so much to heart.'
'They are a very real trouble!' said Margaret. 'Don't smile, mamma. Only remember how wretched his schooldays were, when papa could not see any difficulty in what to him was so hard, and how all papa's eagerness only stupified him the more.' 'They are a comfort not to have that over again! Yet,' said the mother, 'I often think there is more fear for Norman. I dread his talent and success being snares.'
'There is no self-sufficiency about him,' said Margaret. 'I hope not, and he is so transparent, that it would be laughed down at the first bud: but the universal good report, and certainty of success, and being so often put in comparison with Richard, is hardly safe. I was very glad he heard what Ethel said to-day.'
'Ethel spoke very deeply,' said Margaret; 'I was a good deal struck by it--she often comes out with such solid thoughts.'
