, quite
enjoy."

"You do not know what your aunt has had to go through."

"A few years make a great difference in a colony. Still, it may be right
for me to go out alone and judge for her; but we shall know more if my
aunt comes home."

"Yes, I could trust a good deal to her. She has much of your mother's
sense. Well, you must settle it as you can with Meta's people! I do not
think they love the pretty creature better than I have done from the
first minute we saw her--don't you remember it, Norman?"

"Remember it? Do I not? From the frosted cedar downwards! It was the
first gem of spring in that dreary winter. What a Fairyland the Grange
was to me!"

"You may nearly say the same of me," confessed Dr. May, smiling; "the
sight of that happy little sunny spirit, full of sympathy and sweetness,
always sent me brighter on my way. Wherever you may be, Norman, I am
glad you have her, being one apt to need a pocket sunbeam."

"I hope my tendencies are in no danger of depressing her!" said Norman,
startled. "If so--"

"No such thing--she will make a different man of you. You have been
depressed by--that early shock, and the gap at our own fireside--all
that we have shared together, Norman. To see you begin on a new score,
with a bright home of your own, is the best in this world that I could
wish for you, though I shall live over my own twenty-two years in
thinking of you, and that sweet little fairy. But now go, Norman--she
will be watching for you and news of Margaret. Give her all sorts of
love from me."

Norman fared better with the uncle than he had expected. Lord Cosham, as
a philanthropist, could not, with any consistency, set his face against
missions, even when the cost came so near home; and he knew that
opposition made the like intentions assume a heroic aspect that
maintained them in greater force. He therefore went over the subject
in a calm dispassionate manner, which exacted full and grateful
consideration from the young man.

The final compromise was, that nothing should be settled for a year,
during which Norman would complete his course of study, and the matter
might be more fully weighed. Mrs. Arnott would probably return, and
bring experience and judgment, which would, or ought to, decide the
question--though Meta had a secret fear that it might render it more
complicated than ever. However, the engagement and the mission views had
both been treated so much more favourably than could have been hop