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
wha