Flora, meanwhile, was sitting calmly down in the contemplation of the unexpected services she had rendered, confident that her character for energy and excellence was established, believing it herself, and looking back on her childish vanity and love of domineering as long past and conquered. She thought her grown-up character had begun, and was too secure to examine it closely.
CHAPTER XI.
One thing is wanting in the beamy cup
Of my young life! one thing to be poured in;
Ay, and one thing is wanting to fill up
The measure of proud joy, and make it sin.—F. W. F.
Hopes that Dr. May would ever have his mind free, seemed as fallacious as mamma’s old promise to Margaret, to make doll’s clothes for her whenever there should be no live dolls to be worked for in the nursery.
Richard and Ethel themselves had their thoughts otherwise engrossed. The last week before the holidays was an important one. There was an examination, by which the standing of the boys in the school was determined, and this time it was of more than ordinary importance, as the Randall scholarship of £100 a year for three years would be open in the summer to the competition of the first six boys. Richard had never come within six of the top, but had been past at every examination by younger boys, till his father could bear it no longer; and now Norman was too young to be likely to have much chance of being of the number. There were eight decidedly his seniors, and Harvey Anderson, a small, quick-witted boy, half a year older, who had entered school at the same time, and had always been one step below him, had, in the last three months, gained fast upon him.
Harry, however, meant Norman to be one of the six, and declared all the fellows thought he would be, except Andersen’s party. Mr. Wilmot, in a call on Ethel and Flora, told them that he thought their brother had a fair chance, but he feared he was over-working himself, and should tell the doctor so, whenever he could catch him; but this was difficult, as there was a great deal of illness just then, and he was less at home than usual.
All this excited the home party, but Norman only seemed annoyed by talk about it, and though always with a book in his hand, was so dreamy and listless, that Flora declared that there was no fear of his doing too much—she thought he would fail for want of trying.
“I mean to try,” said Norman; “say no more about it, pray.”
The great day was the 20th of December, and Ethel ran out, as the boys went to school, to judge of Norman’s looks, which were not promising. “No wonder,” said Harry, since he had stayed up doing Euripides and Cicero the whole length of a candle that had been new at bedtime. “But never mind, Ethel, if he only beats Anderson, I don’t care for anything else.”
“Oh, it will be unbearable if he does not! Do try, Norman, dear.”
“Never you mind.”
“He’ll light up at the last moment,” said Ethel, consolingly, to Harry; but she was very uneasy herself, for she had set her heart on his surpassing Harvey Anderson. No more was heard all day. Tom went at dinner-time to see if he could pick up any news; but he was shy, or was too late, and gained no intelligence. Dr. May and Richard talked of going to hear the speeches and viva voce examination in the afternoon—objects of great interest to all Stoneborough men—but just as they came home from a long day’s work, Dr. May was summoned to the next town, by an electric telegraph, and, as it was to a bad case, he did not expect to be at home till the mail-train came in at one o’clock at night. Richard begged to go with him, and he consented, unwillingly, to please Margaret, who could not bear to think of his “fending for himself” in the dark on the rail-road.
Very long did the evening seem to the listening sisters. Eight, and no tidings; nine, the boys not come; Tom obliged to go to bed by sheer sleepiness, and Ethel unable to sit still, and causing Flora demurely to wonder at her fidgeting so much, it would be so much better to fix her attention to some employment; while Margaret owned that Flora was right, but watched, and started at each sound, almost as anxiously as Ethel.
It was ten, when there was a sharp pull at the bell, and down flew the sisters; but old James was beforehand, and Harry was exclaiming, “Dux! James, he is Dux! Hurrah! Flossy, Ethel, Mary! There stands the Dux of Stoneborough! Where’s papa?”
“Sent for to Whitford. But oh! Norman, Dux! Is he really?”
“To be sure, but I must tell Margaret,” and up he rushed, shouted the news to her, but could not stay for congratulation; broke Tom’s slumber by roaring it in his ear, and dashed into the nursery, where nurse for once forgave him for waking the baby. Norman, meanwhile, followed his eager sisters into the drawing-room, putting up his hand as if the light dazzled him, and looking, by no means, as it he had just achieved triumphant success.
Ethel paused in her exultation: “But is it, is it true, Norman?”
“Yes,” he said wearily, making his way to his dark corner.
“But what was it for? How is it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
“What’s the matter?” said Flora. “Are you tired, Norman, dear, does your head ache?”
“Yes;” and the pain was evidently severe.
“Won’t you come to Margaret?” said Ethel, knowing what was the greater suffering; but he did not move, and they forbore to torment him with questions. The next moment Harry came down in an ecstacy, bringing in, from the hall, Norman’s beautiful prize books, and showing off their Latin inscription.
“Ah!” said he, looking at his brother, “he is regularly done for. He ought to turn in at once. That Everard is a famous fellow for an examiner. He said he never had seen such a copy of verses sent up by a school-boy, and could hardly believe June was barely sixteen. Old Hoxton says he is the youngest Dux they have had these fifty years that he has known the school, and Mr. Wilmot said ’twas the most creditable examination he had ever known, and that I might tell papa so. What did possess that ridiculous old landlubber at Whitford, to go and get on the sick-list on this, of all the nights of the year? June, how can you go on sitting there, when you know you ought to be in your berth?”
“I wish he was,” said Flora, “but let him have some tea first.”
“And tell us more, Harry,” said Ethel. “Oh! it is famous! I knew he would come right at last. It is too delightful, if papa was but here!”
“Isn’t it? You should have seen how Anderson grinned—he is only fourth—down below Forder, and Cheviot, and Ashe.”
“Well, I did not think Norman would have been before Forder and Cheviot. That is grand.”
“It was the verses that did it,” said Harry; “they had an hour to do Themistocles on the hearth of Admetus, and there he beat them all to shivers. ’Twas all done smack, smooth, without a scratch, in Alcaics, and Cheviot heard Wilmot saying, ’twas no mere task, but had poetry, and all that sort of thing in it. But I don’t know whether that would have done, if he had not come out so strong in the recitation; they put him on in Priam’s speech to Achilles, and he said it—Oh it was too bad papa did not hear him! Every one held their breath and listened.”
“How you do go on!” muttered Norman; but no one heeded, and Harry continued. “He construed a chorus in Sophocles without a blunder, but what did the business was this, I believe. They asked all manner of out-of-the-way questions—history and geography, what no one expected, and the fellows who read nothing they can help, were thoroughly posed. Forder had not a word to say, and the others were worse, for Cheviot thought Queen Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester was Simon de Montfort; and didn’t know