lattered him by letting him handily help her up,
and bounded light as a feather down on the other side, congratulating
herself on the change from the dusty lane to the whispering pine
woods, between which wound the dark path, bestrewn with brown slippery
needle-leaves, and edged with the delicate feathering ling and tufts of
soft grass.

Tom had miscalculated the chances of interruption. Meta was lingering
to track the royal highway of some giant ants to their fir-leaf hillock,
when they were hailed from behind, and her squire felt ferocious at the
sight of Norman and Harry closing the perspective of fir-trunks.

"Hallo! Tom, what a guide you are!" exclaimed Norman. "That fence which
even Ethel and Mary avoid!"

"Mary climbs like a cow, and Ethel like a father-long-legs," said Tom.
"Now Meta flies like a bird."

"And Tom helped me so cleverly," said Meta. "It was an excellent move,
to get into the shade and this delicious pine tree fragrance."

"Halt!" said Norman--"this is too fast for Meta."

"I cannot," said Harry. "I must get there in time to set Dr. Spencer's
tackle to rights. He is tolerably knowing about knots, but there is a
dodge beyond him. Come on, Tom."

He drew on the reluctant Etonian, who looked repiningly back at the
increasing distance between him and the other pair, till a turn in the
path cut off his view.

"I am afraid you do not know what you have undertaken," said Norman.

"I am a capital walker. And I know, or do not know, how often Ethel
takes the same walk."

"Ethel is no rule."

"She ought to be," said Meta. "To be like her has always been my
ambition."

"Circumstances have formed Ethel."

"Circumstances! What an ambiguous word! Either Providence pointing to
duty, or the world drawing us from it."

"Stepping-stones, or stumbling-blocks."

"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