Flora had diverged into wondering who would have the living after poor old Mr. Ramsden, and walked, keeping her husband amused with instances of his blunders.
Meta, as with Norman she parted from the rest, thought her own dear Abbotstoke church, and Mr Charles Wilmot, great subjects for content and thanksgiving, though it was a wonderful treat to see and hear such as she had enjoyed to-day; and she thought it was a joy, to carry away abidingly, to know that praise and worship, as near perfection as this earth could render them, were being offered up.
Norman understood her thought, but responded by more of a sigh than was quite comfortable.
Meta went on with her own thoughts, on the connection between worship and good works, how the one leads to the other, and how praise with pure lips is, after all, the great purpose of existence.-- Her last thought she spoke aloud.
"I suppose everything, our own happiness and all, are given to us to turn into praise," she said.
"Yes--" echoed Norman; but as if his thoughts were not quite with hers, or rather in another part of the same subject; then recalling himself, "Happy such as can do so."
"If one only could--" said Meta.
"You can--don't say otherwise," exclaimed Norman; "I know, at least, that you and my father can."
"Dr. May does so, more than any one I know," said Meta.
"Yes," said Norman again; "it is his secret of joy. To him, it is never, I am half sick of shadows."
"To him they are not shadows, but foretastes," said Meta. Silence again; and when she spoke, she said, "I have always thought it must be such a happiness to have power of any kind that can be used in direct service, or actual doing good."
"No," said Norman. "Whatever becomes a profession, becomes an unreality."
"Surely not, in becoming a duty," said Meta.
"Not for all," he answered; "but where the fabric erected by ourselves, in the sight of the world, is but an outer case, a shell of mere words, blown up for the occasion, strung together as mere language; then, self-convicted, we shrink within the husk, and feel our own worthlessness and hypocrisy."
"As one feels in reproving the school children for behaving ill at church?" said Meta.
"You never felt anything approaching to it!" said Norman. "To know oneself to be such a deception, that everything else seems a delusion too!"
"I don't know whether that is metaphysical," said Meta, "but I am sure I don't understand it. One must know oneself to be worse than one knows any one else to be."
"I could not wish you to understand," said Norman; and yet he seemed impelled to go on; for, after a hesitating silence, he added, "When the wanderer in the desert fears that the spring is but a mirage; or when all that is held dear is made hazy or distorted by some enchanter, what do you think are the feelings, Meta?"
"It must be dreadful," she said, rather bewildered; "but he may know it is a delusion, if he can but wake. Has he not always a spell, a charm?--"
"What is the spell?" eagerly said Norman, standing still.
"Believe--" said Meta, hardly knowing how she came to choose the words.
"I believe!" he repeated. "What--when we go beyond the province of reason--human, a thing of sense after all! How often have I so answered. But Meta, when a man has been drawn, in self-sufficient security, to look into a magic mirror, and cannot detach his eyes from the confused, misty scene--where all that had his allegiance appears shattered, overthrown, like a broken image, or at least unable to endure examination, then--"
"Oh, Norman, is that the trial to any one here? I thought old Oxford was the great guardian nurse of truth! I am sure she cannot deal in magic mirrors or such frightful things. Do you know you are talking like a very horrible dream?"
"I believe I am in one," said Norman.
"To be sure you are. Wake!" said Meta, looking up, smiling in his face. "You have read yourself into a maze, that's all--what Mary calls, muzzling your head; you don't really think all this, and when you get into the country, away from books, you will forget it. One look at our dear old purple Welsh hills will blow away all the mists!"
"I ought not to have spoken in this manner," said Norman sadly. "Forget it, Meta."
"Forget it! Of course I will. It is all nonsense, and meant to be forgotten," said Meta, laughing. "You will own that it is by-and- by."
He gave a deep sigh.
"Don't think I am unfeeling," she said; "but I know it is all a fog up from books, books, books--I should like to drive it off with a good fresh gust of wind! Oh! I wish those yellow lilies would grow in our river!"
Meta talked away gaily for the rest of the walk. She was anything but unfeeling, but she had a confidence in Norman that forbade her to see anything here but one of his variations of spirits, which always sank in the hour of triumph. She put forth her brightness to enliven him, and, in their subsequent tete-a-tetes, she avoided all that could lead to a renewal of this conversation. Ethel would not have rested till it had been fought out. Meta thought it so imaginary, that it had better die for want of the aliment of words; certainly, hers could not reach an intellect like his, and she would only soothe and amuse him. Dr. May, mind-curer as well as body-curer, would soon be here, to put the climax to the general joy and watch his own son.
He did arrive; quite prepared to enjoy, giving an excellent account of both homes; Mr. Rivers very well, and the Wilmots taking care of him, and Margaret as comfortable as usual, Mary making a most important and capable little housekeeper, Miss Bracy as good as possible. He talked as if they had all nourished the better for Ethel's absence, but he had evidently missed her greatly, as he showed, without knowing it, by his instant eagerness to have her to himself. Even Norman, prizeman as he was, was less wanted. There was proud affection, eager congratulation, for him, but it was Ethel to whom he wanted to tell everything that had passed during her absence--whom he treated as if they were meeting after a tedious separation.
They dined rather early, and went out afterwards, to walk down the High Street to Christchurch Meadow. Norman and Ethel had been anxious for this; they thought it would give their father the best idea of the tout ensemble of Oxford, and were not without hopes of beating him by his own confession, in that standing fight between him and his sons, as to the beauties of Oxford and Cambridge--a fight in which, hitherto, they had been equally matched--neither partisan having seen the rival University.
Flora stayed at home; she owned herself fairly tired by her arduous duties of following the two young ladies about, and was very glad to give her father the keeping of them. Dr. May held out his arm to Ethel--Norman secured his peculiar property. Ethel could have preferred that it should be otherwise--Norman would have no companion but George Rivers; how bored he would be!
All through the streets, while she was telling her father the names of the buildings, she was not giving her whole attention; she was trying to guess, from the sounds behind, whether Mr. Ogilvie were accompanying them. They entered the meadows--Norman turned round, with a laugh, to defy the doctor to talk of the Cam, on the banks of the Isis. The party stood still--the other two gentlemen came up. They amalgamated again--all the Oxonians conspiring to say spiteful things of the Cam, and Dr. May making a spirited defence, in which Ethel found herself impelled to join.
In the wide gravelled path, they proceeded in threes; George attached himself to his sister and Norman. Mr. Ogilvie came to Ethel's other side, and began to point out all the various notabilities. Ethel was happy again; her father was so much pleased and amused, with him, and he with her father, that it was a treat to look on.