Ethel groaned, but made no opposition to following her brother down to tea.

Margaret lay, wan and exhausted, on the sofa--the doctor looked very melancholy and rather stern, and the others were silent.

Ethel had begun to hope for the warm reaction she had so often known after a hasty fit, but it did not readily come; Harry was boy instead of girl--the fault and its consequence had been more serious--and the anxiety for the future was greater.

Besides, he had not fully heard the story; Harry, in his incoherent narration, had not excused himself, and Margaret's panic had appeared more as if inspired by him, than, as it was, in fact, the work of her fancy.
Thus the evening passed gloomily away, and it was not till the others had said good-night that Dr.May began to talk over the affair with his eldest son, who then was able to lay before him the facts of the case, as gathered from his sisters.

He listened with a manner as though it were a reproof, and then said sadly, "I am afraid I was in a passion." "It was very wrong in Harry," said Richard, "and particularly unlucky it should happen with the Andersons." "Very thoughtless," said the doctor, "no more, even as regarded Margaret; but thoughtlessness should not have been treated as a crime." "I wish we could see him otherwise," said Richard.
"He wants--" and there Dr.May stopped short, and, taking up his candle, slowly mounted the stairs, and looked into Harry's room.