From the time of the Bishop's visit, Mrs. Falconer began to resume her usual employments. She covered her crape with a large apron, and pinned back the long "weepers" of her large widow's cap, and went about the house again, with none of her old sprightly manner, but still going through her duties in regular order.

It was a time which needed much patience, for, as was natural, Mrs. Falconer saw many things which she considered neglected, and Joyce felt herself held responsible for the misdemeanours of the maids, especially of Susan Priday.

The schoolmistress at Mendip had given Susan an excellent character, and Mrs. More had dictated a note to Joyce from her sick bed, telling her that she believed Susan might really prove a friend as well as a servant, for gratitude would be the spring of all her work, gratitude to Joyce for taking her, and holding her free from all blame in her father's ill-doings and bad life, which had apparently been the cause of the great sorrow which had fallen upon Fair Acres.

Mrs. Falconer had consented with the cold apathetic consent which was discouraging enough. She had taken little or no notice of Susan's presence in the kitchen and dairy till she began to come forth from her seclusion. Then, indeed, poor Susan had a hard time of it; but love, and gratitude to Joyce, were too strong for her to show any resentment for the many unjust suspicions and sharp reproofs which she had to bear.

"It's only what I must look for, Miss Joyce," she said one day, when the breaking of a plate, which she had never touched, was at once laid to her charge. "It's only what I must look for. My dear mother always used to say, when poor father beat and ill-used her, that she remembered some words of St. Peter, that if you were buffeted for doing well, that is, doing your best, and took it patiently, it was acceptable in God's sight. Besides, Miss Joyce, I have been used to hard words, and I know how brokenhearted the poor mistress is; why, she is even a bit cross to Master Piers and you, which is more than I can understand, for you are next door to an angel, Miss Joyce."

"No, Susan I don't feel at all angelic. That is a mistake. I feel angry and discontented sometimes, if I don't show it. There are so many troubles which can't be talked of."

"Yes, miss, I know that well enough; but you can tell them to God, and that's a rare comfort. Dozens of times in the day I tell Him of my biggest trouble, that I have a father who——"

Susan stopped, threw her coarse apron over her head, and ran away to scour the pans in the dairy till they shone like silver.

The bright November weather soon vanished, and the winter closed in rapidly. Except for a visit of a few days from Miss Falconer and Charlotte, nothing occurred to break the monotony of this dead time of the year. Farming and gardening operations were suspended, and Ralph got out his beloved books again, and Piers arranged and re-arranged his large collection of curiosities, and Christmas drew near.

Joyce had given up listening for a footstep on the road, or looking anxiously for the old postman, who trudged from Wells, on fine days, with the letters, but in bad weather pleased himself as to the length of his rounds.

Mrs. Falconer worked, and knitted, and darned, and, when the wind blew fiercely round the house on the dark winter nights, thought of her little Middies tossing about on the wide sea; and of Melville in that far-off land, which she knew more by its shape of a boot on the map Piers had hung up in his room, than by any distinct notion of what was to be seen there.

Rome, Florence, Naples, were but names to her, and as dim and distant as Haiphong or Hong Kong are to many in the present day.

'Melville was in Italy,' and her interest in the country was expressed in these words. Melville's letter, written on hearing of his father's death, was sad enough. Weak natures like his, always find relief in trouble by many words, and give vent to grief by vain protestations of affection and of remorse.

Mrs. Falconer treasured the letter, and read it many times, and thought Joyce unfeeling in expressing so little sympathy with her brother. There could be no doubt that all his wilful disregard of his father's wishes started up before Melville, now that it was too late to atone for them, and for the time, as he said, "he was distracted with grief." But there was no word of a desire to redeem the past by coming to Fair Acres and doing his best to perform his duties there. Selfish people are not cured by trouble of their selfishness. It commonly happens that they are more selfish in their grief than in their joy, more self-absorbed by pain than pleasure.

While Melville could write of his distracted condition, of his love for his father, of his burning indignation against the wretch who had caused his death, and of his determination to have him brought to justice, Joyce was silent; only sometimes, when kneeling by Piers' bed, would she allow her grief full vent; only when alone in the seat under the fir trees would she cry out in the bitterness of her heart for the lost father who had been so dear to her.

And there were other causes of trouble, which she could scarcely confess to herself. Not another word had Gilbert Arundel written, not another sign had he made of remembrance. She knew now, as the time went on, that she loved him, and that, after all, she was nothing to him. How could she have been so foolish? How often she had laughed at Charlotte's fancied admirers, at her continual discovery that some one was in love with her, but was kept back by circumstances from declaring his devotion! For the minor canon was one of a long list of visionary admirers, and he had been followed by the pale-faced clergyman she had met at Barley Wood, about whom, during the few days Charlotte had spent at Fair Acres, she had talked, till Joyce grew weary of the theme.

"Such nonsense!" she had said. "Besides, no girl ought to acknowledge herself to be in love till she has had good reason given her. It is not nice; it is not womanly."

And as day by day passed, and night after night, when she leaned against the casement of her window, when the stars were throbbing and shining in the deep-blue of the winter's sky, she had to confess, with deep abasement of spirit, that she had been as weak as poor Charlotte, nay, weaker; for as Charlotte's heroes fell from their pedestals, or vanished into thin air like the mirage in the desert, she could always replace them, and pour forth her romantic soul in verses addressed to new objects, as if the old had never existed.

But Joyce told herself she must suffer the consequences of her weakness for ever and a day. No one could ever again be to her what Gilbert had been, in that first happy time of awakening love.

Joyce's pale cheeks and wistful eyes at last attracted her mother's notice. In these days she would have been taken to see a doctor, ordered change of air and scene, and put upon some rÉgime as to food. But, except in cases of severe illness, people did not resort to doctors as they do now-a-days, and the nervous patients and chronic invalids, resigned themselves to unlimited home physic, and took their poor health as a matter of course.

"Joyce," Mrs. Falconer said, one day, early in February, when the season of Christmas they had all dreaded so much was past; "Joyce, I think it would do you good to spend a few days with Aunt Letitia at Wells."

Joyce tried to smile.

"I don't want to be done good to, mother; besides, I can't leave you."

"Yes, you can. Mr. Paget said yesterday you looked as if you wanted a change. It's a wonder Mrs. More has not asked you to Barley Wood again."

"She has been so ill," Joyce said; "it is not likely she could invite me."

"And then there is Mrs. Arundel and her niece that came here last fall; not a word have we heard of them."

"Yes, mother; you forget. I have heard twice, about—about Lord Maythorne. Mrs. Arundel has kept him from coming here again. Besides, she is busy settling into a home, and besides——"

"I think it is very odd, Mr. Arundel has never written, or come here again."

"He wrote to me once," Joyce said, in a low voice.

"Did you answer the letter?"

"No, mother," Joyce said, springing up quickly, and, with a great effort, throwing off her sadness. "No; there was nothing to answer. But I will go and stay a day or two with Aunt Letitia, if you want to get rid of me. Ralph can take a note in to Wells to-morrow, when he goes in to the market. I shall only stay two days, but we must find out whether Aunt Letitia wants me first."

Miss Falconer was really pleased that Joyce should propose a visit, and the little guest-chamber in the Vicar's Close was made ready with willing hands, and Charlotte hailed Joyce's appearance, that she might tell her of all her hopes and fears.

Charlotte had been twice at the Palace during the winter. Mrs. Law, gentle and kindly, had taken an interest in the young people in Wells, and had invited Charlotte, amongst others, to tea. Tea at six o'clock, on some day when the bishop and his chaplain and Mr. Henry Law, were absent on some business in the diocese.

If it had been a great thing to visit Mrs. Hannah More at Barley Wood, it was a greater to take tea at the palace. With the wigs of the last and preceding century, the bishops have thrown off a great deal of the episcopal state, which was once considered a part of the duty of the peer spiritual. And a certain air of solemnity pervaded the Wells palace, even when presided over by such true "gentlefolks" as the bishop and Mrs. Law. That old-fashioned word seems to suit the host and hostess at the Wells palace far better than any other term I could use. That innate grace and refinement of feeling is sometimes, it is true, acquired, but it is a plant of slow growth, especially amongst those, who suddenly raised to a position of importance in the Church, feel the elevation makes them a little dizzy. The Bishop's wife, then presiding over the palace, had always moved in the higher circles of society, and, therefore, neither at Carlisle nor Wells did she find it necessary to impress upon humbler people that she stood on a vantage ground to which few could approach. She was dignified, though she was gentle, and no one would ever pass the barrier which divides familiarity, from free and pleasant intercourse. Mrs. Law, like everyone else, was greatly taken with Joyce Falconer; and again poor Charlotte began to feel that with no effort at all her cousin was winning her way, and making an impression which, with all her efforts, she felt she did not succeed in doing.

Miss Falconer was surprised when, the day after the girls had spent an evening at the palace, Mrs. Law sent a little three-cornered note of invitation to Joyce to spend Sunday at the palace before she returned to Fair Acres. The footman waited for a reply, and the discussion of Mrs. Law's note caused no little excitement in the parlour, of which the servant, if he had been so minded, could have heard every word.

"My dear Joyce, what will you do? You have no suitable dress for such a visit; and yet it is a pity to miss it. I really do not know what to advise."

"I think I should like to go to the palace, Aunt Letitia," Joyce said.

"Like! yes; but are you prepared for such a visit?"

"Oh! yes; I have my best frock, the black bombazine, and my crape bonnet. That need not hinder me."

"But, my dear, people in Mrs. Law's position wear evening gowns, with low necks and short sleeves. I have moved in these circles, and of course——"

"We must not keep the servant waiting, Aunt Letitia; if you give me leave, I should like to accept the invitation."

"Very well," said Miss Falconer; "there is my writing-case; take care how you write; begin, 'Miss Joyce Falconer presents her respects.'"

"But Mrs. Law addresses me as, 'Dear Miss Falconer'; had I not better begin, 'Dear Madam, or dear Mrs. Law'?"

"Oh! not 'Dear Mrs. Law.' My dear child, how ignorant you are of etiquette."

Joyce seated herself, and wrote a few words accepting the invitation from Saturday to the Monday following, and took it herself to the footman.

"You should have rung for Phoebe, really Joyce, my dear!" But it was too late. Charlotte, who had been "composing" in the sitting-room upstairs, had heard voices, and now came down just as Joyce had closed the door on the footman from the palace.

"An invitation to stay at the palace! Oh! Joyce, how fortunate you are. Mrs. Law might have asked me!"

"She knows you live in the place, my love," said Miss Falconer.

Charlotte sighed. "If I did not live here it would be all the same."

But Charlotte was really an amiable girl, and her devotion to Joyce was sincere and true.

"Well," she said, "what will you wear, dear? Can I lend you any pretty things? My amber beads—or—my filigree comb. Oh! I forgot! Of course, you are still in deep black."

"It is very kind of you, Charlotte," Joyce said; "you always are kind; but I don't want anything."

The whole of that day Joyce's visit to the palace engrossed the little party in the Vicar's Close. Some cronies of Miss Falconer came in for a gossip by the fireside, and were duly informed of the invitation, and were duly congratulatory and a little jealous, although there was a certain amount of satisfaction, that it was not Charlotte whom Mrs. Law had delighted to honour.

It was a memorable visit to Joyce, and in a way she little expected. The first evening passed pleasantly; and with a white muslin fichu, which Miss Falconer insisted upon making for her, crossed over her black gown, Joyce looked her best. The sleeves of best gowns in those days were cut rather short, and Joyce wore on her round, white arms a pair of black lace mittens, which Charlotte had lent her.

Her beautiful hair needed no adornment; it fell round her forehead in natural curls, and was piled up without the help of cushions or frizzettes, a natural crown of chesnut and gold. As at Barley Wood, so at the palace; Joyce was too simple-minded to be stiff or constrained in manner, and she conversed so pleasantly with a young son of the bishop, who gave her his arm when they went to dinner, that he, in his turn, did his best to be agreeable, and she was soon telling him of her little sailor brothers, of Piers and his collection of butterflies, of Ralph and his love of study, and the brave way in which he had come to live at Fair Acres and do his best to turn into a farmer.

If the Saturday evenings were pleasant, how delightful was the Sunday, when, in the sunshine of the early February day, the party from the palace crossed to the cloister door, and went to the morning service in the cathedral. It has been said of Wells that it is always Sunday there; no sounds but the ringing of bells for service; no business, and no traffic in the streets. But certain it is, that nowhere is the real Sabbath stillness more profound, nor more refreshing to the tired in spirit, on a day like that February day, when Joyce was seated in the high pew belonging to the Bishop. The cathedral is always a vision of beauty, and when the swelling of the organ and the voices of the choristers are hushed, and a pause occurs after the benediction has been pronounced, the sounds without the building seem in direct harmony with those within; for the Lady Chapel abuts on the lawn of the Sub-Dean's residence, where the waters of St. Joseph's Well lie deep; and there is the murmur of the streams, the chirp of birds, the soft coo of pigeons, and the distinct chatter of the jackdaw from the West front.

Joyce went out of the cathedral filled with peaceful thoughts of the temple, of which this was but the faint shadow, the temple which has no need of the sun to lighten it, for the Lamb is the light thereof.

Quite forgetting that she ought to turn towards the cloisters, Joyce walked on down the nave before the Bishop's party had missed her. The sweet seriousness of her face as she went out into the sunshine almost held back the welcome, which was trembling on the lips of someone who was standing near the porch, and had watched her coming down the wide nave.

She was passing out, wrapt in her own meditations when Gilbert Arundel put out his hand:

"Joyce!"

She started, and blushed rosy red.

"You did forget me, then!" he exclaimed, reproachfully.

"Forget you, no."

"You did not reply to my letter?"

"You did not ask me to write."

They now found themselves by the turnstile under the old clock, that quaint clock which, it is said, was made to strike many times in succession for the amusement of that gracious and sagacious King James, who laughed till his sides ached, as the old knights, in their black armour, hit the bell with their battle-axes, beneath the suggestive motto, "Ne quid pereat." They hit it now with, all their wonted vigour four times, and then the clock struck one.

"We have come the wrong way. I am staying at the palace till to-morrow," Joyce said.

"At the palace! I am glad to hear it; but your mother, whom I saw yesterday, did not know it."

"No; it was a sudden thought. I mean Mrs. Law only asked me on Friday."

"I am glad you are at the palace," Gilbert said. "I know I shall have a friend in the Bishop."

Joyce made no remark to this, and they retraced their steps in silence till they had crossed the drawbridge and were in the palace grounds.

"I have thought so much of you," he said, earnestly. "I am now come, as I said I should, to present my petition. Is there any hope?"

Joyce turned away her head, and did not answer.

When they reached the palace, a footman threw open the door:

"Dinner is served," he said, in a voice which was intended to be a mild reproof.

"Can I see his lordship?" Gilbert asked; while Joyce ran upstairs to her room on the upper floor.

"His lordship is just sitting down to dinner, sir. What name——"

Gilbert took out a card and handed it to the man, leaving him in the hall till he knew the Bishop's will.

Presently he reappeared.

"I am requested to beg you, sir, to go into the dining-room at once: this way."

The Bishop rose, and gave Gilbert Arundel a very different greeting from that which he had granted Lord Maythorne.

"My dear young friend, welcome for your mother's sake, always welcome, and for your own. How could you doubt it? Why stand on ceremony? But we are in some distress," he said, with a sly twinkle in his eye; "we have lost a young lady: she vanished into thin air as we left the cathedral. Perhaps some knight-errant has carried her off. Ah! I see you know something about her. Well, sit down; and, Barker," to one of the servants, "Miss Falconer's place next Mr. Arundel's."

The Bishop dearly loved a little love affair, and he fancied he descried one in "the air."

It was a great trial of Joyce's self-possession when the door of the dining-room was opened for her by a servant, and she had to pass to her place at the long dining-table. The Bishop's son came to the rescue, making room for her by standing up and showing her the vacant place.

"I am sorry I was late," she said.

"It is a lovely day," was the rejoinder. "I do not wonder that you took a turn after service."

"Yes," said Mrs. Law, kindly. "I saw your cousin in the cathedral, and I thought it probable that you would walk home with her."

"No," Joyce said, in a low voice, "I did not go home with Charlotte."

One person at least appreciated the honesty of this confession, and Gilbert told himself that it was a part of Joyce's crystal transparency of character, that she would not even allow an assertion about herself to pass if it were not absolutely true.

When Joyce was sitting after dinner, with Mrs. Law and several ladies, in the long gallery, the Bishop's son brought her a message.

"My father would like to see you in his study for a few minutes. Will you kindly follow me?"

Joyce obeyed, but her heart beat fast, and she dreaded what the Bishop might have to say to her. Something about Melville; some bad news of the little Middies: her thoughts flew in all directions.

The Bishop had already seated himself in his crimson leather chair, and, when Mr. Law closed the door, she found herself alone with his lordship.

"My dear young lady," he said, in his slow, sonorous tones, "as I know you are, alas! fatherless, will you allow me to stand, for the moment, in the place of a father? A young gentleman, the son of an old friend, has told me to-day that he seeks the honour of paying his addresses to you. He went to Fair Acres last night and received your mother's sanction, tempered, no doubt, with the natural pain of losing you. But she gives her consent, and I venture to endorse it. As chief pastor and father of the diocese, over which I have so recently come to preside, I do earnestly commend to you the son of my old friend, Gilbert Arundel. I propose that you should take a ramble together after service, in the spring twilight, and when we meet at the evening meal, I hope I may find you have made my young friend happy."

The Bishop's speech may sound to us unnecessarily long and formal, but, sixty years ago, the old spirit of chivalrous respect towards maidens, in approaching the subject of marriage, had not then died out. Perhaps, also, in the time of the good Bishop, when the first gentleman in Europe was setting so wretched an example in his behaviour, good and honourable men felt it the more incumbent on them to give the woman the full privileges of her position.

Love was to be sought as a favour granted, not claimed in a careless fashion as a right; while the whole aspect of courtship and marriage was dealt with more seriously than it is in our day.

Barriers are more easily broken down than set up again, and, perhaps, there is too great a tendency now-a-days to treat what is grave as a jest, and to show but little inclination to tread in the paths which our mothers and grandmothers found safe. Thus the Bishop, when he had heard from Gilbert's lips the object of his visit to Wells, thought it his duty to speak to Joyce in the grave manner I have described.

The Bishop rose from his chair, and, laying his hand on Joyce's head, solemnly pronounced a blessing, and, with crimson cheek and bowed head, she left him, to prepare to go to the afternoon service.

Later in the day, the supreme moment in her young life came, when she walked with Gilbert in the fields towards Dinder, turning to the left, where, in a tangled copse, the first budding flowers of the starry celandines were peeping amidst fallen leaves and mosses.

The clustering primrose buds were hardly yet showing themselves amongst their crinkled leaves, and only the upright stems of the alders, and the lowest boughs of the maples and hazel bushes displayed the first emerald green of spring. It was a time and place for the exchange of first young love, and confidences never to be forgotten.

And in all the changes and chances of her future life, Joyce could look back to that first spring afternoon, and say from her heart that it was the opening for her of a new and beautiful chapter. If the hopes of the earlier days of their acquaintance had lain dormant during the winter, they now sprang up with the coming life of the spring time, and were sweet with the promise of the future.

When once Gilbert had found voice to tell his story he was eloquent, and when once Joyce had given her response there was no further need for reticence.

"And why did you not write to me?" he asked.

"As I said, because you did not ask me; and then when your uncle came, he told me that you cared for Miss Anson; and I thought, half thought, it might be true."

Gilbert made an impatient gesture.

"You only half thought so; you knew, Joyce, you knew better. So," he went on under his breath, "that is the mischief he went to Fair Acres to work. My mother soon stopped him from daring to persecute you."

"Mr. Paget and Mr. Gill said there was no lawful claim on poor Melville, for the money had been lent him to gamble with, and that Lord Maythorne knew he had no just claim to it."

"Of course he knew it; he thought he would frighten you, and your poor mother. But let us not speak more of him."

"I wonder what will be done when Melville comes home, for I suppose he will come home in the summer."

"Yes; perhaps he may have turned over a new leaf, as the children say; anyhow, I can't help being grateful to Melville."

"To Melville?" she said.

"Yes; for was it not he who invited me to Fair Acres, to find you, my darling."

Then he drew her closer, and with her hand in his arm, they walked through the quiet fields back to the little city.

The cathedral stood up in a dark mysterious mass against the clear sky. The last purple gleam was dying from the distant hills which encircle Wells; Venus hung her silver lamp over the central tower of the cathedral, and the whole scene was one of infinite peace.

They did not speak of the future, the present was sufficient for them; but the cry of Joyce's heart, even in its happiness, found words:

"Oh! that my father knew."

"He may know, my darling," Gilbert said; "and I think we may rest in the certainty that if he were here he would give me a welcome."

"Yes," Joyce said, softly; "yes, I know he would. Oh! dear father."