om vehemently. "I cannot think
why Norman should care for them more than for his own brothers and
sisters. All I know is, that if I were my father, I would never give my
consent."

"It is lucky you are not," said Meta, smiling defiance, though a tear
shone in her eye. "Dr. May makes the sacrifice with a free heart and
willing mind."

"Everybody goes and sacrifices somebody else," grumbled Tom.

"Who are the victims now?"

"All of us. What are we to do without Norman? He is worth all of us
put together; and I--" Meta was drawn to the boy as she had never been
before, as he broke off short, his face full of emotion, that made him
remind her of his father.

"You might go out and follow in his steps," said she, as the most
consoling hope she could suggest.

"Not I. Don't you know what is to happen to me? Ah! Flora has not told
you. I thought she would not think it grand enough. She talked about
diplomacy--"

"But what?" asked Meta anxiously.

"Only that I am to stick to the old shop," said Tom. "Don't tell any
one; I would not have the fellows know it."

"Do you mean your father's profession?"

"Ay!"

"Oh, Tom! you don't talk of that as if you despised it?"

"If it is good enough for him, it is good enough for me, I suppose,"
said Tom. "I hate everything when I think of my brothers going over the
world, while I, do what I will, must be tied down to this slow place all
the rest of my days."

"If you were away, you would be longing after it."

"Yes; but I can't get away."

"Surely, if the notion is so unpleasant to you, Dr. May would never
insist?"

"It is my free choice, and that's the worst of it."

"I don't understand."

"Don't you see? Norman told me it would be a great relief to him if I
would turn my mind that way--and I can't go against Norman. I found he
thought he must if I did not; and, you know, he is fit for all sorts of
things that--Besides, he has a squeamishness about him, that makes him
turn white, if one does but cut one's finger, and how he would ever go
through the hospitals--"

Meta suspected that Tom was inclined to launch into horrors. "So you
wanted to spare him," she said.

"Ay! and papa was so pleased by my offering that I can't say a word of
the bore it is. If I were to back out, it would come upon Aubrey, and
he is weakly, and so young, that he could not help my father for many
years."

Meta was much struck at the motives that actuated the self-sacrifice,
veiled by the