'No,' said Ethel, 'but I cannot help being sorry for Cocksmoor. I thought patience would prepare the way, and the means be granted in good time, without hastiness--only earnestness.'
'You had made a picture for yourself,' said Margaret gently. 'Yes, we all make pictures for ourselves, and we are the foremost figures in them; but they are taken out of our hands, and we see others putting in rude touches, and spoiling our work, as it seems; but, by- and-by, we shall see that it is all guided.'
Ethel sighed. 'Then having protested to my utmost against this concern, you think I ought to be amiable about it.'
'And to let poor Mary enjoy it. She would be so happy, if you would not bewilder her by your gloomy looks, and keep her to the hemming of your endless glazed calico bonnet strings.'
'Poor old Mary! I thought that was by her own desire.'
'Only her dutiful allegiance to you; and, as making pincushions is nearly her greatest delight, it is cruel to make her think it, in some mysterious way, wrong and displeasing to you.'
Ethel laughed, and said, 'I did not think Mary was in such awe of me. I'll set her free, then. But, Margaret, do you really think I ought to give up my time to it?'
'Could you not just let them have a few drawings, or a little bit of your company work--just enough for you not to annoy every one, and seem to be testifying against them? You would not like to vex Meta.'
'It will go hard, if I do not tell Meta my mind. I cannot bear to see her deluded.'
'I don't think she is,' said Margaret; 'but she does not set her face against what others wish. As papa says of his dear little humming- bird, she takes the honey, and leaves the poison.'
'Yes; amid all that enjoyment, she is always choosing the good, and leaving the evil; always sacrificing something, and then being happy in the sacrifice!'
'No one would guess it was a sacrifice, it is so joyously done--least of all Meta herself.'
'Her coming home from London was exactly a specimen of that sacrifice--and no sacrifice,' said Ethel.
'What was that?' said Norman, who had come up to the window unobserved, and had been listening to their few last sentences.
'Did not you hear of it? It was a sort of material turning away from vanity that made me respect the little rival Daisy, as much as I always admired her.
'Tell me,' said Norman. 'When was it?'
'Last spring. You know Mr. Rivers is always ill in London: indeed, papa says it would be the death of him; but Lady Leonora Langdale thinks it dreadful that Meta should not go to all the gaieties; and last year, when Mrs. Larpent was gone, she insisted on her coming to stay with her for the season. Now Meta thought it wrong to leave her father alone, and wanted not to have gone at all, but, to my surprise, Margaret advised her to yield, and go for some short fixed time.'
'Yes,' said Margaret; 'as all her elders thought it right, I did not think we could advise her to refuse absolutely. Besides, it was a promise.'
'She declared she would only stay three weeks, and the Langdales were satisfied, thinking that, once in London, they should keep her. They little knew Meta, with her pretty ways of pretending that her resolution is only spoiled-child wilfulness. None of you quite trusted her, did you, Margaret? Even papa was almost afraid, though he wanted her very much to be at home; for poor Mr. Rivers was so low and forlorn without her, though he would not let her know, because Lady Leonora had persuaded him to think it was all for her good.'
'What did they do with her in London?' asked Norman.
'They did their utmost,' said Ethel. 'They made engagements for her, and took her to parties and concerts-- those she did enjoy very much and she had lessons in drawing and music, but whenever she wanted to see any exhibitions, or do anything, they always said there was time to spare. I believe it was very charming, and she would have been very glad to stay, but she never would promise,and she was always thinking of her positive duty at home. She seemed afterwards to think of her wishes to remain almost as if they had been a sin; but she said--dear little Meta--that nothing had ever helped her so much as that she used to say to herself, whenever she was going out, 'I renounce the world.' It came to a crisis at last, when Lady Leonora wanted her to be presented--the Drawing-Room was after the end of her three weeks--and she held out against it; though her aunt laughed at her, and treated her as if she was a silly, shy child. At last, what do you think Meta did? She went to her uncle, Lord Cosham, and appealed to him to say whether there was the least necessity for her to go to court.'
'Then she gained the day?' said Norman.
'He was delighted with that spirited, yet coaxing way of hers, and admired her determination. He told papa so himself--for you must know, when he heard all Meta had to say, he called her a very good girl, and said he would take her home himself on the Saturday she had fixed, and spend Sunday at Abbotstoke. Oh! he was perfectly won by her sweet ways. Was not it lucky? for before this Lady Leonora had written to Mr. Rivers, and obtained from him a letter, which Meta had the next day, desiring her to stay for the Drawing-Room. But Meta knew well enough how it was, and was not to be conquered that way; so she said she must go home to entertain her uncle, and that if her papa really wished it, she would return on Monday.'
'Knowing well that Mr. Rivers would be only too glad to keep her.'
'Just so. How happy they both did look, when they came in here on their way from the station where he had met her! How she danced in, and how she sparkled with glee!' said Margaret, 'and poor Mr. Rivers was quite tremulous with the joy of having her back, hardly able to keep from fondling her every minute, and coming again into the room after they had taken leave, to tell me that his little girl had preferred her home, and her poor old father, to all the pleasures in London. Oh, I was so glad they came! That was a sight that did one good! And then, I fancy Mr. Rivers is a wee bit afraid of his brother-in-law, for he begged papa and Flora to come home and dine with them, but Flora was engaged to Mrs. Hoxton.'
'Ha! Flora!' said Norman, as if he rather enjoyed her losing something through her going to Mrs. Hoxton. 'I suppose she would have given the world to go!'
'I was so sorry,' said Ethel; 'but I had to go instead, and it was delightful. Papa made great friends with Lord Cosham, while Mr. Rivers went to sleep after dinner, and I had such a delightful wandering with Meta, listening to the nightingales, and hearing all about it. I never knew Meta so well before.'
'And there was no more question of her going back?' said Norman.
'No, indeed! She said, when her uncle asked in joke, on Monday morning, whether she had packed up to return with him, Mr. Rivers was quite nervously alarmed the first moment, lest she should intend it.'
'That little Meta,' said Margaret. 'Her wishes for substantial use have been pretty well realised!'
'Um!' said Ethel.
'What do you mean?' said Norman sharply. 'I should call her present position the perfection of feminine usefulness.'
'So perhaps it is,' said Ethel; 'but though she does it beautifully, and is very valuable, to be the mistress of a great luxurious house like that does not seem to me the subject of aspirations like Meta's.'
'Think of the contrast with what she used to be,' said Margaret gently, 'the pretty, gentle, playful toy that her father brought her up to be, living a life of mere accomplishments and self-indulgence; kind certainly, but never so as to endure any disagreeables, or make any exertion. But as soon as she entered into the true spirit of our calling, did she not begin to seek to live the sterner life, and train herself in duty? The quiet way she took always seemed to me the great beauty of it. She makes duties of her accomplishments by making them loving obedience to her father.'
'Not that they are not pleasant to her?' interposed Norman.
'Certainly,' said Margaret, 'but it gives them the zest, and confidence that they are right, which one could not have in such things merely for one's own amusement.'
'Yes,' said Ethel, 'she does more; she told me one day that one reason she liked sketching was, that looking into nature always made psalms and hymns sing in her ears, and so with her music and her beautiful copies from the old Italian devotional pictures. She says our papa taught her to look at them so as to see more than the mere art and beauty.'
'Think how diligently she measures out her day,' said Margaret; 'getting up early, to be sure of time for reading her serious books, and working hard at her tough studies.'
'And what I care for still more,' said Ethel, 'her being bent on learning plain needlework and doing it for her poor people. She is so useful amongst the cottagers at Abbotstoke!'
'And a famous little mistress of the house,' added Margaret. 'When the old housekeeper went away two years
