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“Harry, don’t, don’t talk so!” sobbed Mary. “Oh, do come to papa, and let us beg and pray. Take hold of my hand, and Margaret will beg too, and when he sees how sorry you are, I am sure he will forgive, and let you be confirmed.” She would have dragged him after her.
“No, Mary,” said Harry, resisting her. “It is not that he does not forgive. You don’t understand. It is what is right. And he cannot help it, or make it right for me, if I am such a horrid wretch that I can’t keep grave thoughts in my head. I might do it again after that, just the same.”
“You have been grave enough of late,” said Mary.
“This was enough to make me so,” said Harry; “but even at church, since I came home, I have behaved ill! I kicked Tom, to make him look at old Levitt asleep, and then I went on, because he did not like it. I know I am too idle.”
On the Tuesday, Dr. May had said he would take Norman and Etheldred to Mr. Ramsden. Ethel was gravely putting on her walking dress, when she heard her father’s voice calling Harry, and she started with a joyful hope.
There, indeed, when she came downstairs, stood Harry, his cap in his hand, and his face serious, but with a look on it that had as much subdued joy as awe.
“Dear, dear Harry! you are going with us then?”
“Yes, papa wrote to ask what Mr. Wilmot thought, and he said—”
Harry broke off as his father advanced, and gave her the letter itself to read. Mr. Wilmot answered that he certainly should not refuse such a boy as Harry, on the proof of such entire penitence and deep feeling. Whether to bring him to the further privilege might be another question; but, as far as the Confirmation was concerned, the opinion was decided.
Norman and Ethel were too happy for words, as they went arm in arm along the street, leaving their dear sailor to be leaned on by his father.
Harry’s sadness was gone, but he still was guarded and gentle during the few days that followed; he seemed to have learned thought, and in his gratitude for the privileges he had so nearly missed, to rate them more highly than he might otherwise have done. Indeed, the doubt for the Sunday gave him a sense of probation.
The Confirmation day came. Mr. Rivers had asked that his daughter might be with Miss May, and Ethel had therefore to be called for in the Abbotstoke carriage, quite contrary to her wishes, as she had set her heart on the walk to church with her father and brothers. Flora would not come, for fear of crowding Mr. Rivers, who, with Mrs. Larpent, accompanied his darling.
“Oh, Margaret,” said Flora, after putting her sister into the carriage, “I wish we had put Ethel into a veil! There is Meta all white from head to foot, with such a veil! and Ethel, in her little white cap, looks as if she might be Lucy Taylor, only not so pretty.”
“Mamma thought the best rule was to take the dress that needs least attention from ourselves, and will be least noticed,” said Margaret.
“There is Fanny Anderson gone by in the fly with a white veil on!” cried Mary, dashing in.
“Then I am glad Ethel has not one,” said Flora. Margaret looked annoyed, but she had not found the means of checking Flora without giving offence; and she could only call Mary and Blanche to order, beg them to think of what the others were doing, and offer to read to them a little tale on Confirmation.
Flora sat and worked, and Margaret, stealing a glance at her, understood that, in her quiet way, she resented the implied reproof. “Making the children think me worldly and frivolous!” she thought; “as if Margaret did not know that I think and feel as much as any reasonable person!”
The party came home in due time, and after one kiss to Margaret, given in silence, dispersed, for they could not yet talk of what had passed.
Only Ethel, as she met Richard on the stairs, said, “Ritchie, do you know what the bishop’s text was? ‘No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”
“Yes?” said Richard interrogatively.
“I thought it might be a voice to me,” said Ethel; “besides what it says to all, about our Christian course. It seems to tell me not to be out of heart about all those vexations at Cocksmoor. Is it not a sort of putting our hand to the plough?”
Dr. May gave his own history of the Confirmation to Margaret. “It was a beautiful thing to watch,” he said, “the faces of our own set. Those four were really like a poem. There was little Meta in her snowy whiteness, looking like innocence itself, hardly knowing of evil, or pain, or struggle, as that soft earnest voice made her vow to be ready for it all, almost as unscathed and unconscious of trial, as when they made it for her at her baptism; pretty little thing—may she long be as happy. And for our own Ethel, she looked as if she was promising on and on, straight into eternity. I heard her ‘I do,’ dear child, and it was in such a tone as if she meant to be ever doing.”
“And for the boys?”
“There was Norman grave and steadfast, as if he knew what he was about, and was manfully and calmly ready—he might have been a young knight, watching his armour.”
“And so he is,” said Margaret softly. “And poor Harry?”
The doctor could hardly command voice to tell her. “Poor Harry, he was last of all, he turned his back and looked into the corner of the seat, till all the voices had spoken, and then turned about in haste, and the two words came on the end of a sob.”
“You will not keep him away on Sunday?” said Margaret.
“Far be it from me. I know not who should come, if he should not.”
CHAPTER XXVI
What matter, whether through delight,
Or led through vale of tears,
Or seen at once, or hid from sight,
The glorious way appears?
If step by step the path we see,
That leads, my Saviour, up to Thee!
“I could not help it,” said Dr. May; “that little witch—”
“Meta Rivers? Oh! what, papa?”
“It seems that Wednesday is her birthday, and nothing will serve her but to eat her dinner in the old Roman camp.”
“And are we to go? Oh, which of us?”
“Every one of anything like rational years. Blanche is especially invited.”
There were transports till it was recollected that on Thursday morning school would recommence, and that on Friday Harry must join his ship.
However, the Roman camp had long been an object of their desires, and Margaret was glad that the last day should have a brilliancy, so she would not hear of any one remaining to keep her company, talked of the profit she should gain by a leisure day, and took ardent interest in every one’s preparations and expectations, in Ethel’s researches into county histories and classical dictionaries, Flora’s sketching intentions, Norman’s promises of campanula glomerata, and a secret whispered into her ear by Mary and Harry.
“Meta’s weather,” as they said, when the August sun rose fresh and joyous; and great was the unnecessary bustle, and happy confusion from six o’clock till eleven, when Dr. May, who was going to visit patients some way farther on the same road, carried off Harry and Mary, to set them down at the place.
The rest were called for by Mr. Rivers’s carriage and brake. Mrs. Charles Wilmot and her little girl were the only additions to the party, and Meta, putting Blanche into the carriage to keep company with her contemporary, went herself in the brake. What a brilliant little fairy she was, in her pink summer robes, fluttering like a butterfly, and with the same apparent felicity in basking in joy, all gaiety, glee, and light-heartedness in making others happy. On they went, through honeysuckled lanes, catching glimpses of sunny fields of corn falling before the reaper, and happy knots of harvest folks dining beneath the shelter of their sheaves, with the sturdy old green umbrella sheltering them from the sun.
Snatches of song, peals of laughter, merry nonsense, passed from one to the other; Norman, roused into blitheness, found wit, the young ladies found laughter, and Richard’s eyes and mouth looked very pretty, as they smiled their quiet diversion.
At last, his face drawn all into one silent laugh, he directed the eyes of the rest to a high green mound, rising immediately before them, where stood two little figures, one with a spy-glass, intently gazing the opposite way.
At the same time came the halt, and Norman, bounding out, sprang lightly and nimbly up the side of the mound, and, while the spy-glass was yet pointed full at Wales, had hold of a pair of stout legs, and with the words, “Keep a good lockout!” had tumbled Mr. May headforemost down the grassy slope, with Mary rolling after.
Harry’s first outcry was for his precious glass—his second was, not at his fall, but that they should have come from the east, when, by the compass, Stoneborough was north-north-west. And then the boys took to tumbling over one another, while Meta frolicked joyously, with Nipen after her, up and down the mounds, chased by Mary and Blanche, who were wild with glee.
By-and-by she joined Ethel, and Norman was summoned to help them to trace out the old lines of encampment, ditch, rampart, and gates—happy work on those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor—thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow-banded dumbledores, the breezy wind blowing softly in their faces, and the expanse of country—wooded hill, verdant pasture, amber harvest-field, winding river, smoke-canopied town, and brown moor, melting grayly away to the mountain heads.
Now in sun, now in shade, the bright young antiquaries surveyed the old banks, and talked wisely of vallum and fossa, of legion and cohort, of Agricola and Suetonius, and discussed the delightful probability, that this might have been raised in the war with Caractacus, whence, argued Ethel, since Caractacus was certainly Arviragus, it must have been the very spot where Imogen met Posthumus again. Was not yonder the very high-road to Milford Haven, and thus must not “fair Fidele’s grassy tomb” be in the immediate neighbourhood?
Then followed the suggestion that the mound in the middle was a good deal like an ancient tomb, where, as Blanche interposed with some of the lore lately caught from Ethel’s studies, “they used to bury their tears in wheelbarrows,” while Norman observed it was the more probable, as fair Fidele never was buried at all.
The idea of a search enchanted the young ladies. “It was the right sort of vehicle, evidently,” said Norman, looking at Harry, who had been particularly earnest in recommending that it should be explored; and Meta declared that if they could but find the least trace, her papa would be delighted to go regularly to work, and reveal all the treasures.
Richard seemed a little afraid of the responsibility of treasure-trove, but he was overruled by a chorus of eager voices, and dispossessed of the trowel, which he had brought to dig up some down-gentians for the garden. While Norman set to work as pioneer, some skipped about in wild ecstasy, and Ethel knelt down to peer into the hole.
Very soon there was a discovery—an eager outcry—some pottery! Roman vessels—a red thing that might have been a lamp, another that might have been a lachrymatory.
“Well,” said Ethel, “you know, Norman, I always told you that the children’s pots and pans in the clay ditch were very like Roman pottery.”
“Posthumus’s patty pan!” said Norman, holding it up. “No doubt this was the bottle filled with the old queen’s tears when Cloten was killed.”
“You see it is very small,” added Harry; “she could not squeeze out many.”
“Come now, I do believe you are laughing at it!” said Meta, taking the derided vessels into her hands. “Now, they really are genuine, and very curious things, are not they, Flora?”
Flora and Ethel admired and speculated till there was a fresh, and still more exciting discovery—a coin, actually a medal, with the head of an emperor upon it—not a doubt of his high nose being Roman. Meta was certain that she knew one exactly like him among her father’s gems. Ethel was resolved that he should be Claudius, and began decyphering the defaced inscription THVRVS. She tried Claudius’s whole torrent of names, and, at last, made it into a contraction of Tiberius, which highly satisfied her.
Then Meta, in her turn, read D.V.X., which, as Ethel said, was all she could wish—of course it was dux et imperator, and Harry muttered into Norman’s ear, “ducks and geese!” and then heaved a sigh, as he thought of the dux no longer. “V.V.,” continued Meta; “what can that mean?”
“Five, five, of course,” said Flora.
“No, no! I have it, Venus Victrix” said Ethel, “the ancestral Venus! Ha! don’t you see? there she is on the other side, crowning Claudius.”
“Then there is an E.”
“Something about Aeneas,” suggested Norman gravely. But Ethel was sure that could not be, because there was no diphthong; and a fresh theory was just being started, when Blanche’s head was thrust in to know what made them all so busy.
“Why, Ethel, what are you doing with Harry’s old medal of the Duke of Wellington?”
Poor Meta and Ethel, what a downfall! Meta was sure that Norman had known it the whole time, and he owned to having guessed it from Harry’s importunity for the search. Harry and Mary had certainly made good use of their time, and great was the mirth over the trap so cleverly set—the more when it was disclosed that Dr. May had been a full participator in the scheme, had suggested the addition of the pottery, had helped Harry to some liquid to efface part of the inscription, and had even come up with them to plant the snare in the most plausible corner for researches.
Meta, enchanted with the joke, flew off to try to take in her governess and Mrs. Wilmot, whom she found completing their leisurely promenade, and considering where they should spread the dinner.
The sight of those great baskets of good fare was appetising, and the company soon collected on the shady turf, where Richard made himself extremely useful, and the feast was spread without any worse mishap than Nipen’s running away with half a chicken, of which he was robbed, as Tom reported, by a surly-looking dog that watched in the outskirts of the camp, and caused Tom to return nearly as fast as the poor little white marauder.
Meta “very immorally,” as Norman told her, comforted Nipen with a large share of her sandwiches. Harry armed himself with a stick and Mary with a stone, and marched off to the attack, but saw no signs of the enemy, and had begun to believe him a figment of Tom’s imagination, when Mary spied him under a bush, lying at the feet of a boy, with whom he was sharing the spoil.
Harry called out rather roughly, “Hallo! what are you doing there?”
The boy jumped up, the dog growled, Mary shrank behind her brother, and begged him not to be cross to the poor boy, but to come away. Harry repeated his question.
“Please, sir, Toby brought it to me.”
“What, is Toby your dog?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you so hungry as to eat dog’s meat?”
“I have not had nothing before to-day, sir.”
“Why, where do you live? hereabouts?”
“Oh, no, sir; I lived with grandmother up in Cheshire, but she is dead now, and father is just come home from sea, and he wrote down I was to be sent to him at Portsmouth, to go to sea with him.”
“How do you live? do you beg your way?”
“No, sir; father sent up a pound in a letter, only Nanny Brooks said I owed some to her for my victuals, and I have not much of it left, and bread comes dear, so when Toby brought me this bit of meat I was glad of it, sir, but I would not have taken it—”
The boy was desired to wait while the brother and sister, in breathless excitement, rushed back with their story.
Mrs. Wilmot was at first inclined to fear that the naval part of it had been inspired by Harry’s uniform, but the examination of Jem Jennings put it beyond a doubt that he spoke nothing but the truth; and the choicest delight of the feast was the establishing him and Toby behind the barrow, and feeding them with such viands as they had probably never seen before.
The boy could not read writing, but he had his father’s letter in his pocket, and Mary capered at the delightful coincidence, on finding that Jem Jennings was actually a quarter-master on board the Alcestis. It gave a sort of property in the boy, and she almost grudged Meta the having been first to say that she would pay for the rest of his journey, instead of doing it by subscription.
However, Mary had a consolation, she would offer to take charge of Toby, who, as Harry observed, would otherwise have been drowned—he could not be taken on board. To be sure, he was a particularly ugly animal, rough, grisly, short-legged, long-backed, and with an apology for a tail—but he had a redeeming pair of eyes, and he and Jem lived on terms of such close friendship, that he would have been miserable in leaving him to the mercy of Nanny Brooks.
So, after their meal, Jem and Toby were bidden to wait for Dr. May’s coming, and fell asleep together on the green bank, while the rest either sketched, or wandered, or botanised. Flora acted the grown-up lady with Mrs. Wilmot, and Meta found herself sitting by Ethel, asking her a great many questions about Margaret, and her home, and what it could be like to be one of such a numerous family. Flora had always turned aside from personal matters, as uninteresting to her companion, and, in spite of Meta’s admiration, and the mutual wish to be intimate, confidence did not spring up spontaneously, as it had done with the doctor, and, in that single hour, with Margaret. Blunt as Ethel was, her heartiness of manner gave a sense of real progress in friendship. Their Confirmation vows seemed to make a link, and Meta’s unfeigned enthusiasm for the doctor was the sure road to Ethel’s heart. She was soon telling how glad Margaret was that he had been drawn into taking pleasure in to-day’s scheme, since, not only were his spirits tried by the approach of Harry’s departure, but he had, within the last few days, been made very sad by reading and answering Aunt Flora’s first letter on the news of last October’s misfortune.
“My aunt in New Zealand,” explained Ethel.
“Have you an aunt in New Zealand?” cried Meta. “I never heard of her!”
“Did not you? Oh! she does write such charming long letters!”
“Is she Dr. May’s sister?”
“No; he was an only child. She is dear mamma’s sister. I don’t remember her, for she went out when I was a baby, but Richard and Margaret were so fond of her. They say she used to play with them, and tell them stories, and sing Scotch songs to them. Margaret says the first sorrow of her life was Aunt Flora’s going away.”
“Did she live with them?”
“Yes; after grandpapa died, she came to live with them, but then Mr. Arnott came about. I ought not to speak evil of him, for he is my godfather, but we do wish he had not carried off Aunt Flora! That letter of hers showed me what a comfort it would be to papa to have her here.”
“Perhaps she will come.”
“No; Uncle Arnott has too much to do. It was a pretty story altogether. He was an officer at Edinburgh, and fell in love with Aunt Flora, but my grandfather Mackenzie thought him too poor to marry her, and it was all broken off, and they tried to think no more of it. But grandpapa died, and she came to live here, and somehow Mr. Arnott turned up again, quartered at Whitford, and papa talked over my Uncle Mackenzie, and helped them—and Mr. Arnott thought the best way would be to go out to the colonies. They went when New Zealand was very new, and a very funny life they had! Once they had their house burned in Heki’s rebellion—and Aunt Flora saw a Maori walking about in her best Sunday bonnet; but, in general, everything has gone on very well, and he has a great farm, besides an office under government.”
“Oh, so he went out as a settler! I was in hopes it was as a missionary.”
“I fancy Aunt Flora has done a good deal that may be called missionary work,” said Ethel, “teaching the Maori women and girls. They call her mother, and she has quite a doctor’s shop for them, and tries hard to teach them to take proper care of their poor little children when they are ill; and she cuts out clothes for the whole pah, that is, the village.”
“And are they Christians?”
“Oh! to be sure they are now! They meet in the pah for prayers every morning and evening—they used to have a hoe struck against a bit of metal for a signal, and when papa heard of it, he gave them a bell, and they were so delighted. Now there comes a clergyman every fourth Sunday, and, on the others, Uncle Arnott reads part of the service to the English near, and the Maori teacher to his people.”
Meta asked ravenously for more details, and when she had pretty well exhausted Ethel’s stock, she said, “How nice it must be! Ethel, did you ever read the ‘Faithful Little Girl?’”
“Yes; it was one of Margaret’s old Sunday books. I often recollected it before I was allowed to begin Cocksmoor.”
“I’m afraid I am very like Lucilla!” said Meta.
“What? In wishing to be a boy, that you might be a missionary?” said Ethel. “Not in being quite so cross at home?” she added, laughing.
“I am not cross, because I have no opportunity,” said Meta.
“No opportunity. Oh, Meta, if people wish to be cross, it is easy enough to find grounds for it. There is always the moon to cry for.”
“Really and truly,” said Meta thoughtfully, “I never do meet with any reasonable trial of temper, and I am often afraid it cannot be right or safe to live so entirely at ease, and without contradictions.”
“Well, but,” said Ethel, “it is the state of life in which you are placed.”
“Yes; but are we meant never to have vexations?”
“I thought you had them,” said Ethel. “Margaret told me about your maid. That would have worried some people, and made them horridly cross.”
“Oh, no rational person,” cried Meta. “It was so nice to think of her being with the poor mother, and I was quite interested in managing for myself; besides, you know, it was just a proof how one learns to be selfish, that it had never occurred to me that I ought to spare her.”
“And your school children—you were in some trouble about them?”
“Oh, that is pleasure.”
“I thought you had a class you did not like?”
“I like them now—they are such steady plodding girls, so much in earnest, and one, that has been neglected, is so pleased and touched by kindness. I would not give them up for anything now—they are just fit for my capacity.”
“Do you mean that nothing ever goes wrong with you, or that you do not mind anything—which?”
“Nothing goes wrong enough with me to give me a handsome excuse for minding it.”
“Then it must be all your good temper.”
“I don’t think so,” said Meta; “it is that nothing is ever disagreeable to me.”
“Stay,” said Ethel, “if the ill-temper was in you, you would only be the crosser for being indulged—at least, so books say. And I am sure myself that it is not whether things are disagreeable or not, but whether one’s will is with them, that signifies.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Why—I have seen the boys do for play, and done myself, what would have been a horrid hardship if one had been made to do it. I never liked any lessons as well as those I did without being obliged, and always, when there is a thing I hate very much in itself, I can get up an interest in it, by resolving that I will do it well, or fast, or something—if I can stick my will to it, it is like a lever, and it is done. Now, I think it must be the same with you, only your will is more easily set at it than mine.”
“What makes me uncomfortable is, that I feel as if I never followed anything but my will.”
Ethel screwed up her face, as if the eyes of her mind were pursuing some thought almost beyond her. “If our will and our duty run the same,” she said, “that can’t be wrong. The better people are, the more they ‘love what He commands,’ you know. In heaven they have no will but His.”
“Oh! but Ethel,” cried Meta, distressed, “that is putting it too high. Won’t you understand what I mean? We have learned so much lately about self-denial, and crossing one’s own inclinations, and enduring hardness. And here I live with two dear kind people, who only try to keep every little annoyance from my path. I can’t wish for a thing without getting it—I am waited on all day long, and I feel like one of the women that are at ease—one of the careless daughters.”
“I think still papa would say it was your happy contented temper that made you find no vexation.”
“But that sort of temper is not goodness. I was born with it; I never did mind anything, not even being punished, they say, unless I knew papa was grieved, which always did make me unhappy enough. I laughed, and went to play most saucily, whatever they did to me. If I had striven for the temper, it would be worth having, but it is my nature. And Ethel,” she added, in a low voice, as the tears came into her eyes, “don’t you remember last Sunday? I felt myself so vain and petted a thing! as if I had no share in the Cup of suffering, and did not deserve to call myself a member—it seemed ungrateful.”
Ethel felt ashamed, as she heard of warmer feelings than her own had been, expressed in that lowered trembling voice, and she sought for the answer that would only come to her mind in sense, not at first in words. “Discipline,” said she, “would not that show the willingness to have the part? Taking the right times for refusing oneself some pleasant thing.”
“Would not that be only making up something for oneself?” said Meta.
“No, the Church orders it. It is in the Prayer-book,” said Ethel. “I mean one can do little secret things—not read storybooks on those days, or keep some tiresome sort of work for them. It is very trumpery, but it keeps the remembrance, and it is not so much as if one did not heed.”
“I’ll think,” said Meta, sighing. “If only I felt myself at work, not to please myself, but to be of use. Ha!” she cried, springing up, “I do believe I see Dr. May coming!”
“Let us run and meet him,” said Ethel.
They did so, and he called out his wishes of many happy returns of blithe days to the little birthday queen, then added, “You both look grave, though—have they deserted you?”
“No, papa, we have been having a talk,” said Ethel. “May I tell him, Meta? I want to know what he says.”
Meta had not bargained for this, but she was very much in earnest, and there was nothing formidable in Dr. May, so she assented.
“Meta is longing to be at work—she thinks she is of no use,” said Ethel; “she says she never does anything but please herself.”
“Pleasing oneself is not the same as trying to please oneself,” said Dr. May kindly.
“And she thinks it cannot be safe or right,” added Ethel, “to live that happy bright life, as if people without care or trouble could not be living as Christians are meant to live. Is that it, Meta?”
“Yes, I think it is,” said Meta. “I seem to be only put here to be made much of!”
“What did David say, Meta?” returned Dr. May.
“My Shepherd is the living Lord,
Nothing therefore I need;
In pastures fair, near pleasant streams,
He setteth me to feed.”
“Then you think,” said Meta, much touched, “that I ought to look on this as ‘the pastures fair,’ and be thankful. I hope I was not unthankful.”
“Oh, no,” said Ethel. “It was the wish to bear hardness, and be a good soldier, was it not?”
“Ah! my dear,” he said, “the rugged path and dark valley will come in His own fit time. Depend upon it, the good Shepherd is giving you what is best for you in the green meadow, and if you lay hold on His rod and staff in your sunny days—” He stopped short, and turned to his daughter. “Ethel, they sang that psalm the first Sunday I brought your mamma home!”
Meta was much affected, and began to put together what the father and daughter had said. Perhaps the little modes of secret discipline, of which Ethel had spoken, might be the true means of clasping the staff—perhaps she had been impatient, and wanting in humility in craving for the strife, when her armour was scarce put on.
Dr. May spoke once again. “Don’t let any one long for external trial. The offering of a free heart is the thing. To offer praise is the great object of all creatures in heaven and earth. If the happier we are, the more we praise, then all is well.”
But the serious discussion was suddenly broken off.
Others had seen Dr. May’s approach, and Harry and Mary rushed down in dismay at their story having, as they thought, been forestalled. However, they had it all to themselves, and the doctor took up the subject as keenly as could have been hoped, but the poor boy being still fast asleep, after, probably, much fatigue, he would not then waken him to examine him, but came and sat down in the semicircle, formed by a terraced bank of soft turf, where Mrs. Larpent, Mrs. Wilmot, Richard, and Flora, had for some time taken up their abode. Meta brought him the choice little basket of fruit which she had saved for him, and all delighted in having him there, evidently enjoying the rest and sport very much, as he reposed on the fragrant slope, eating grapes, and making inquiries as to the antiquities lately discovered.
Norman gave an exceedingly droll account of the great Roman Emperor, Tiberius V.V., and Meta correcting it, there was a regular gay skirmish of words, which entertained every one extremely—above all, Meta’s indignation when the charge was brought home to her of having declared the “old Duke” exactly like in turns to Domitian and Tiberius—his features quite forbidding.
This lasted till the younger ones, who had been playing and rioting till they were tired, came up, and throwing themselves down on the grass, Blanche petitioned for something that every one could play at.
Meta proposed what she called the story play. One was to be sent out of earshot, and the rest to agree upon a word, which was then to be guessed by each telling a story, and introducing the word into it, not too prominently. Meta volunteered to guess, and Harry whispered to Mary it would be no go, but, in the meantime, the word was found, and Blanche eagerly recalled Meta, and sat in the utmost expectation and delight. Meta turned first to Richard, but he coloured distressfully, and begged that Flora might tell his story for him—he should only spoil the game. Flora, with a little tinge of graceful reluctance, obeyed. “No woman had been to the summit of Mont Blanc,” she said, “till one young girl, named Marie, resolved to have this glory. The guides told her it was madness, but she persevered. She took the staff, and everything requisite, and, following a party, began the ascent. She bravely supported every fatigue, climbed each precipice, was undaunted by the giddy heights she attained, bravely crossed the fields of snow, supported the bitter cold, and finally, though suffering severely, arrived at the topmost peak, looked forth where woman had never looked before, felt her heart swell at the attainment of her utmost ambition, and the name of Marie was inscribed as that of the woman who alone has had the glory of standing on the summit of the Giant of the Alps.”
