'How full of vagaries you are,' said her mother. 'Why won't it do to continue as you are? No sooner have I learnt up your schemes, and got enough used to 'em to see something in 'em, than you must needs bewilder me again by starting some fresh one, so that my mind gets no rest at all.' Ethelberta too keenly felt the justice of this remark, querulous as it was, to care to defend herself. It was hopeless to attempt to explain to her mother that the oscillations of her mind might arise as naturally from the perfection of its balance, like those of a logan-stone, as from inherent lightness; and such an explanation, however comforting to its subject, was little better than none to simple hearts who only could look to tangible outcrops. 'Really, Ethelberta,' remonstrated her mother, 'this is very odd. Making yourself miserable in trying to get a position on our account is one thing, and not necessary; but I think it ridiculous to rush into the other extreme, and go wilfully down in the scale. You may just as well exercise your wits in trying to swim as in trying to sink.' 'Yes; that's what I think,' said her father. 'But of course Berta knows best.' 'I think so too,' said Gwendoline. 'And so do I,' said Cornelia. 'If I had once moved about in large circles like Ethelberta, I wouldn't go down and be a schoolmistress--not I.' 'I own it is foolish--suppose it is,' said Ethelberta wearily, and with a readiness of misgiving that showed how recent and hasty was the scheme. 'Perhaps you are right, mother; anything rather than retreat. I wonder if you are right! Well, I will think again of it to-night. Do not let us speak more about it now.' She did think of it that night, very long and painfully. The arguments of her relatives seemed ponderous as opposed to her own inconsequent longing for escape from galling trammels. If she had stood alone, the sentiment that she had begun to build but was not able to finish, by whomsoever it might have been entertained, would have had few terrors; but that the opinion should be held by her nearest of kin, to cause them pain for life, was a grievous thing. The more she thought of it, the less easy seemed the justification of her desire for obscurity. From regarding it as a high instinct she passed into a humour that gave that desire the appearance of a whim. But could she really set in train events, which, if not abortive, would take her to the altar with Viscount Mountclere?