'Well, I suppose one may do one's duty without being three parts of a
boy,' said Richard, gravely.

'I know it is true that some of the most saintly characters have been
the more spiritual because their animal frame was less vigorous; but
still it does not content me.'

'No, the higher the power, the better, of course, should the service
be. I was only putting you in mind that there is compensation. But
I must be off. I am sorry I cannot wait for papa. Let me know what
is the matter to-morrow, and how Aubrey is.'

Richard went; and the sisters took up their employments--Ethel
writing to the New Zealand sister-in-law her history of the wedding,
Mary copying parts of a New Zealand letter for her brother, the
lieutenant in command of a gun-boat on the Chinese coast. Those
letters, whether from Norman May or his wife, were very delightful,
they were so full of a cheerful tone of trustful exertion and
resolution, though there had been perhaps more than the natural
amount of disappointments. Norman's powers were not thought of the
description calculated for regular mission work, and some of the
chief aspirations of the young couple had had to be relinquished at
the voice of authority without a trial. They had received the charge
of persons as much in need of them as unreclaimed savages, but to
whom there was less apparent glory in ministering. A widespread
district of very colonial colonists, and the charge of a college for
their uncultivated sons, was quite as troublesome as the most ardent
self-devotion could desire; and the hardships and disagreeables,
though severe, made no figure in history--nay, it required ingenuity
to gather their existence from Meta's bright letters, although, from