"And, oh! the difficult question, when to bend them, or to bend to them!"
"There must be always some guiding," said Norman.
"I believe there is," said Meta, "but when trumpet-peals are ringing around, it is hard to know whether one is really 'waiting beside the tent,' or only dawdling."
"It is great self-denial in the immovable square not to join the charge," said Norman.
"Yes; but they, being shot at, are not deceiving themselves."
"I suppose self-deception on those points is very common."
"Especially among young ladies," said Meta. "I hear so much of what girls would do, if they might, or could, that I long to see them like Ethel--do what they can. And then it strikes me that I am doing the same, living wilfully in indulgence, and putting my trust in my own misgivings and discontent."
"I should have thought that discontent had as little to do with you as with any living creature."
"You don't know how I could growl!" said Meta, laughing. "Though less from having anything to complain of, than from having nothing to complain of."
"You mean," he said, pausing, with a seriousness and hesitation that startled her--"do you mean that this is not the course of life that you would choose?"
A sort of bashfulness made her put her answer playfully--
"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.
"Toys have a kindly mission, and I may be good for nothing else; but I would have rather been a coffee-pot than a china shepherdess."
The gaiety disconcerted him, and he seemed to try to be silent, or to reply in the same tone, but he could not help returning to the subject. "Then you find no charm in the refinements to which you have been brought up?"
"Only too much," said Meta.
He was silent, and fearing to have added to his fine-lady impression, she resumed. "I mean that I never could dislike anything, and kindness gives these things a soul; but, of course, I should be better satisfied, if I lived harder, and had work to do."
"Meta!" he exclaimed, "you tempt me very much! Would you? --No, it is too unreasonable. Would you share--share the work that I have undertaken?"
He turned aside and leaned against a tree, as if not daring to watch the effect of the agitated words that had broken from him. She had little imagined whither his last sayings had been tending, and stood still, breathless with the surprise.
"Forgive me," he said hastily. "It was very wrong. I never meant to have vexed you by the betrayal of my vain affection."
He seemed to be going, and this roused her. "Stay, Norman," exclaimed she. "Why should it vex me? I should like it very much indeed."
He faced suddenly towards her-- "Meta, Meta! is it possible? Do you know what you are saying?"
"I think I do."
"You must understand me," said Norman, striving to speak calmly. "You have been--words will not express what you have been to me for years past, but I thought you too far beyond my hopes. I knew I ought to be removed from you--I believed that those who are debarred from earthly happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and-- and I cannot turn back," he added quickly, as if fearing himself.
"No indeed," was her steady reply.
"Then I may believe it!" cried Norman. "You do--you will--you deliberately choose to share it with me?"
"I will try not to be a weight on you," answered the young girl, with a sweet mixture of resolution and humility. "It would be the greatest possible privilege. I really do not think I am a fine lady ingrain, and you will teach me not to be too unworthy."
"I? Oh, Meta, you know not what I am! Yet with you, with you to inspire, to strengthen, to cheer--Meta, Meta, life is so much changed before me, that I cannot understand it yet--after the long dreary hopelessness--"
"I can't think why--" Meta had half said, when feminine dignity checked the words, consciousness and confusion suddenly assailed her, dyed her cheeks crimson, and stifled her voice.
It was the same with Norman, and bashfulness making a sudden prey of both--on they went under its dominion, in a condition partaking equally of discomfort and felicity; dreading the sound of their own voices, afraid of each other's faces, feeling they were treating each other very strangely and ungratefully, yet without an idea what to say next, or the power of speaking first; and therefore pacing onwards, looking gravely straight along the path, as if to prevent the rabbits and foxgloves from guessing that anything had been passing between them.
Dr. May had made his call at Drydale, and was driving up a rough lane, between furzy banks, leading to Cocksmoor, when he was aware of a tall gentleman on one side of the road and a little lady on the other, with the whole space of the cart-track between them, advancing soberly towards him.
"Hallo! Why, Meta! Norman! what brings you here? Where are you going?"
Norman perceived that he had turned to the left instead of to the right, and was covered with shame.
"That is all your wits are good for. It is well I met you, or you would have led poor Meta a pretty dance! You will know better than to trust yourself to the mercies of a scholar another time. Let me give you a lift."
The courteous doctor sprang out to hand Meta in, but something made him suddenly desire Adams to drive on, and then turning round to the two young people, he said, "Oh!"
"Yes," said Norman, taking her hand, and drawing her towards him.
"What, Meta, my pretty one, is it really so? Is he to be happy after all? Are you to be a Daisy of my own?"
"If you will let me," murmured Meta, clinging to her kind old friend.
"No flower on earth could come so naturally to us," said Dr. May. "And, dear child, at last I may venture to tell you that you have a sanction that you will value more than mine. Yes, my dear, on the last day of your dear father's life, when some foreboding hung upon him, he spoke to me of your prospects, and singled out this very Norman as such as he would prefer."
Meta's tears prevented all, save the two little words, "thank you;" but she put out her hand to Norman, as she still rested on the doctor's arm, more as if he had been her mother than Norman's father.
"Did he?" from Norman, was equally inexpressive of the almost incredulous gratitude and tenderness of his feeling.
It would not bear talking over at that moment, and Dr. May presently broke the silence in a playful tone. "So, Meta, good men don't like heiresses?"
"Quite true," said Meta, "it was very much against me."
"Or it may be the other way," said Norman.
"Eh? Good men don't like heiresses--here's a man who likes an heiress--therefore here's a man that is not good? Ah, ha! Meta, you can see that is false logic, though I've forgotten mine. And pray, miss, what are we to say to your uncle?"
"He cannot help it," said Meta quickly.
"Ha!" said the doctor, laughing, "we remember our twenty-one years, do we?"
"I did not mean--I hope I said nothing wrong," said Meta, in blushing distress. "Only after what you said, I can care for nothing else."
"If I could only thank him," said Norman fervently.
"I believe you know how to do that, my boy," said Dr. May, looking tenderly at the fairy figure between them, and ending with a sigh, remembering, perhaps, the sense of protection with which he had felt another Margaret lean on his arm.
The clatter of horses' hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame and his servant overtook them.
"We will be in good time for the proceedings," called out the doctor. "Tell them we are coming."
"I did not know you were walking," said Sir Henry to Meta.
"It is pleasant in the plantations," Dr. May answered for her; "but I am afraid we are late, and our punctual friends will be in despair. Will you kindly say we are at hand?"
Sir Henry rode on, finding that he was not to be allowed to walk his horse with them, and that Miss Rivers had never looked up.
"Poor Sir Henry!" said Dr. May.