e looked
round, and saw the familiar furniture and ornaments.

They were instantly checked as she heard her father returning, but not
so that he did not perceive them, and exclaim that it had been too much
for her. "Oh, no--it was only the first time," said Margaret, losing the
sense of the painful vacancy in her absorbing desire not to distress her
father, and thinking only of him as she watched him standing for some
minutes leaning on the mantel-shelf with his hand shading his forehead.

She began to speak as soon as she thought he was ready to have his mind
turned away: "How nicely Ritchie managed! He carried me so comfortably
and easily. It is enough to spoil me to be so deftly waited on."

"I'm glad of it," said Dr. May; "I am sure the change is better for
you;" but he came and looked at her still with great solicitude.

"Ritchie can take excellent care of me," she continued, most anxious
to divert his thoughts. "You see it will do very well indeed for you to
take Harry to school."

"I should like to do so. I should like to see his master, and to take
Norman with me," said the doctor. "It would be just the thing for him
now--we would show him the dockyard, and all those matters, and such a
thorough holiday would set him up again."

"He is very much better."

"Much better--he is recovering spirits and tone very fast. That
leaf-work of yours came at a lucky time. I like to see him looking out
for a curious fern in the hedgerows--the pursuit has quite brightened
him up."

"And he does it so thoroughly," said Margaret. "Ethel fancies it is
rather frivolous of him, I believe; but it amuses me to see how men give
dignity to what women make trifling. He will know everything about the
leaves, hunts up my botany books, and has taught me a hundred times more
of the construction and wonders of them than I ever learned."

"Ay," said the doctor, "he has been talking a good deal to me about
vegetable chemistry. He would make a good scientific botanist, if
he were to be nothing else. I should be glad if he sticks to it as a
pursuit--'tis pretty work, and I should like to have gone further with
it, if I had ever had time for it."

"I dare say he will," said Margaret. "It will be very pleasant if he can
go with you. How he would enjoy the British Museum, if there was time
for him to see it! Have you said anything to him yet?"

"No; I waited to see how you were, as it all depends on that."

"I think it depends still mo