reminiscences, and descriptions of the ways of her former school. There was no fear of spoiling her--notice from her superiors was natural to her, and she had the lady-likeness of womanly goodness, so as never to go beyond her own place. She had had many trials too, and Margaret learned the true history of them, as she won Cherry's confidence, and entered into them, feeling their likeness, yet dissimilarity, to her own.
Cherry had been a brisk happy girl in a good place, resting in one of the long engagements that often extend over half the life of a servant, enjoying the nod of her baker as he left his bread, and her walk from church with him on alternate Sundays. But poor Cherry had been exposed to the perils of window-cleaning; and, after a frightful fall, had wakened to find herself in a hospital, and her severe sufferings had left her a cripple for life.
And the baker had not been an Alan Ernescliffe! She did not complain of him--he had come to see her, and had been much grieved, but she had told him she could never be a useful wife; and, before she had used her crutches, he was married to her pretty fellow-servant.
Cherry spoke very simply; she hoped it was better for Long, and believed Susan would make him a good wife. Ethel would have thought she did not feel, but Margaret knew better.
She stroked the thin slight fingers, and gently said, 'Poor Cherry!' and Cherry wiped away a tear, and said, 'Yes, ma'am, thank you, it is best for him. I should not have wished him to grieve for what cannot be helped.'
'Resignation is the great comfort.'
'Yes, ma'am. I have a great deal to be thankful for. I don't blame no one, but I do see how some, as are married, seem to get to think more of this world; and now and then I fancy I can see how it is best for me as it is.'
Margaret sighed, as she remembered certain thoughts before Alan's return.
'Then, ma'am, there has been such goodness! I did vex at being a poor helpless thing, nothing but a burden on father; and when we had to go from home, and Mr. and Mrs. Hazlewood and all, I can't tell you how bad it was, ma'am.'
'Then you are comforted now?'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Cherry, brightening. 'It seems as if He had given me something to do, and there are you, and Mr. Richard, and Miss Ethel, to help. I should like, please God, to be of some good to those poor children.'
'I am sure you will, Cherry; I wish I could do as much.'
Cherry's tears had come again. 'Ah! ma'am, you--' and she stopped short, and rose to depart. Margaret held out her hand to wish her good-bye. 'Please, miss, I was thinking how Mr. Hazlewood said that God fits our place to us, and us to our place.'
'Thank you, Cherry, you are leaving me something to remember.'
And Margaret lay questioning with herself, whether the schoolmistress had not been the most self-denying of the two; but withal gazing on the hoop of pearls which Alan had chosen as the ring of betrothal.
'The pearl of great price,' murmured she to herself; 'if we hold that, the rest will soon matter but little. It remaineth that both they that have wives, be as they that have none, and they that weep, as though they wept not, and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not! If ever Alan and I have a home together upon earth, may all too confident joy be tempered by the fears that we have begun with! I hope this probation may make me less likely to be taken up with the cares and pleasures of his position than I might have been last year. He is one who can best help the mind to go truly upward. But oh, that voyage!'
CHAPTER XXIX.
Heart affluence in household talk, From social fountains never dry.--TENNYSON.
'What a bore!'
'What's the matter now?'
'Here has this old fellow asked me to dinner again!'
'A fine pass we are come to!' cried Dr. May, half amused, half irate. 'I should like to know what I should have said at your age if the head-master had asked me to dinner.'
'Papa is not so very fond of dining at Dr. Hoxton's,' said Ethel. 'A whipper-snapper schoolboy, who might be thankful to dine anywhere!' continued Dr. May, while the girls burst out laughing, and Norman looked injured.
'It is very ungrateful of Norman,' said Flora; 'I cannot see what he finds to complain of.'
'You would know,' said Norman, 'if, instead of playing those perpetual tunes of yours, you had to sit it out in that perfumy drawing-room, without anything to listen to worth hearing. If I have looked over that court album once, I have a dozen times, and there is not another book in the place.'
'I am glad there is not,' said Flora. 'I am quite ashamed to see you for ever turning over those old pictures. You cannot guess how stupid you look. I wonder Mrs. Hoxton likes to have you,' she added, patting his shoulders between jest and earnest.
'I wish she would not, then. It is only to escort you.'
'Nonsense, Norman, you know better,' cried Ethel. 'You know it is for your own sake, and to make up for their injustice, that he invites you, or Flora either.'
'Hush, Ethel! he gives himself quite airs enough already,' said the doctor.
'Papa!' said Ethel, in vexation, though he gave her a pinch to show it was all in good humour, while he went on, 'I am glad to hear they do leave him to himself in a corner. A very good thing too! Where else should a great gawky schoolboy be?'
'Safe at home, where I wish he would let me be,' muttered Norman, though he contrived to smile, and followed Flora out of the room, without subjecting himself to the imputation of offended dignity.
Ethel was displeased, and began her defence: 'Papa, I wish--' and there she checked herself.
'Eh! Miss Ethel's bristles up!' said her father, who seemed in a somewhat mischievous mood of teasing.
'How could you, papa?' cried she.
'How could I what, Miss Etheldred?'
'Plague Norman,'--the words would come. 'Accuse him of airs.'
'I hate to see young fellows above taking an honour from their elders,' said Dr. May.
'Now, papa, papa, you know it is no such thing. Dr. Hoxton's parties are very dull--you know they are, and it is not fair on Norman. If he was set up and delighted at going so often, then you would call him conceited.'
'Conceit has a good many lurking-places,' said Dr. May. 'It is harder to go and be overlooked, than to stay at home.'
'Now, papa, you are not to call Norman conceited,' cried Ethel. 'You don't believe that he is any such thing.'
'Why, not exactly,' said Dr. May, smiling. 'The boy has missed it marvellously; but, you see, he has everything that subtle imp would wish to feed upon, and it is no harm to give him a lick with the rough side of the tongue, as your canny Scots grandfather used to say.'
'Ah! if you knew, papa--' began Ethel.
'If I knew?'
'No, no, I must not tell.'
'What, a secret, is there?'
'I wish it was not; I should like to tell you very much, but then, you see, it is Norman's, and you are to be surprised.'
'Your surprise is likely to be very much like Blanche's birthday presents, a stage aside.'
'No, I am going to keep it to myself.'
Two or three days after, as Ethel was going to the schoolroom after breakfast, Dr. May beckoned her back to the dining-room, and, with his merry look of significance, said, 'Well, ma'am, I have found out your mystery!'
'About Norman? Oh, papa! Did he tell you?'
'When I came home from the hospital last night, at an hour when all respectable characters, except doctors and police, should be in their warm beds, I beheld a light in Norman's window, so methought I would see what Gravity was doing out of his bed at midnight--'
'And you found him at his Greek--'
'So that was the meaning of his looking so lank and careworn, just as he did last year, and he the prince of the school! I could have found it in my heart to fling the books at his head!'
'But you consent, don't you, to his going up for the scholarship?'
