der and more sedate.'

'Oh, I am so glad!' said Ethel, who had been led to view her likeness
to her father as natural, that to her mother as acquired.

Those were the last words of the conversation; but Ethel, leaning from
her window to listen to the plash of the waves, suspected that the
slowly moving meteor she beheld, denoted that a cigar was soothing the
emotions excited by their dialogue. She mused long over that
revelation of the motives of the life that had always been noble and
generous in the midst of much that was eccentric and wayward, and
constantly the beat of the waves repeated to her the half-comprehended
words, 'Never threaten Providence.'

After superintending Aubrey's first bath, and duly installing the
vice-M. D. and her charges, Dr. Spencer departed; and Ethel was
launched on an unknown ocean, as pilot to an untried crew. She had
been told to regard Leonard's bashfulness as a rare grace; but it was
very inconvenient to have the boy wretchedly drooping, and owning
nothing amiss, apparently unacquainted with any English words, except
'Thank you' and 'No, thank you.' Indeed, she doubted whether the
shyness were genuine, for stories were afloat of behaviour at
Stoneborough parties which savoured of audacity, and she vainly
consulted Aubrey whether the cause of his discomfiture were her age or
her youth, her tutorship or her plain face. Even Aubrey could not
elicit any like or dislike, wish or complaint; and shrugging up his
shoulders, decided that it was of no use to bother about it; Leonard
would come to his senses in time. He was passive when taken out
walking, submissive when planted on a three-cornered camp-stool that
expanded from a gouty walking-stick, but seemed so inadequately
perched, and made so forlorn a spectacle, that they were forced to put
him indoors out of the glare of sea and sky, and hoping that he would
condescend to the sofa when Ethel was out of sight.

Punctilio broke down the next morning; and in the midst of breakfast,
he was forced to lie down, and allow Ethel to bathe his face with
vinegar and water; while she repented of the 'make-the-best-of-it'
letter of the yesterday, and sent Aubrey out on a secret commission of
inquiry about medical men, in case of need. Aubrey was perfectly well,
and in such a state of desultory enjoyment and sea-side active
idleness, that he was quite off her mind, only enlivening her morning
of nursing by his exits and entrances, to tell of f