Couple Berates Officer | Thinks “Uncle Dan” will Clear the Charges

JOAN’S HANDFUL

CHAPTER I

THE PAINTER

AN October afternoon, bright and sunny; the touch of frost in the previous night had only accentuated the vividness of colour in the beech trees that surrounded Old Bellerton Rectory. In the cobbled stone yard at the back was Joan Adair, busy with paint and paintbrush. She had tucked her skirt up, and was enveloped in a huge white apron. Her deep blue eyes were so intent upon her handiwork that she did not notice the approach of a stalwart young man in a rough shooting costume, who stood leaning against the stable door, and surveyed her with amused appreciation.

“Ahem!”

Joan started. She turned a fresh fair face towards the onlooker. It was a typical English face, not particularly beautiful, but essentially bonny; and when she smiled, a dimple came and went in a most distracting fashion. Her bright brown hair gleamed with gold, though at present an old straw hat, with a crow’s feather sticking up jauntily on one side, concealed most of her glory.

“Derrick! How like you! Have you dropped from the sky?”

“Do I look like a cherub? No; I’m out for slaughter. See my gun? Have had an invite to the Hall for a week to help old Jossy with his pheasants. What on earth are you doing?”

Joan waved her brush proudly. It was no sketch of autumn beauty which occupied her clever fingers, but a very shabby little jingle which was being liberally plastered with black and red paint.

“Our chariot,” she said laughing. “Oh, Derrick, I can’t tell you how I am revelling in the country! Every day here is too exquisite for words.”

“How is Dominie?”

“He is as pleased as I am. We’re as happy as the day is long; but perhaps that does not say much, as the days are getting short now!”

“I never knew the day that did not see you happy,” said the young man. “Is tea coming on? I’ve got a thirst which needs a drop of something, and I know the Dominie won’t give me a whisky and soda.”

“Go in and talk to him. I must finish my job. Shan’t we look smart?”

“You’ll be taken for the Royal Mail. How fond you are of red! You always were. Do you remember when your red frock was baptised with ink? How you howled! Here, let me take a hand.”

He seized her brush. Joan stood and watched him.

“Any crest to go on?”

“You can paint Dad’s name.”

Derrick did so; but when Joan looked over his shoulder she found “Joan’s a dear!” added in large letters.

“Derrick, haven’t you grown up yet?” Joan said severely.

“I’m trying to,” he said meekly.

Then he threw down his brush, and she led the way into the house.

It was one of those very old-fashioned English rectories which are delightful to look at and to live in, if it were not for the thought of repairs. A low, square, oak-panelled hall, dark, and with rather a musty atmosphere; low, long sitting-rooms opening out of it, with oak beams across the ceilings, and deep casement windows overlooking a rather untidy and leaf-bestrewed garden. Pictures and books seemed to cover all the walls, a few shelves of fragile old china lightened the rather gloomy little drawing-room; but Derrick was led into the rector’s study, where Mr. Adair was immersed amongst his books. Here there was a cheerful fire burning, and a square tea-table set by its side. A copper kettle was singing away on the hob.

“Dad, dear, here is one of your former pupils—the black sheep amongst them.”

Mr. Adair turned round and greeted the young man heartily.

Joan’s father was getting on in years, but he enjoyed excellent health. His face was ruddy and cheerful and clean shaven; his white hair and the stoop in his shoulders were the only signs of age.

“I must wash my hands,” said Joan. “We will have tea in a few minutes.”

She left the room humming a little song under her breath. A green baize door opened at one end of the hall, and an elderly woman’s face appeared with rather an anxious look upon it.

“Is it visitors, Miss Joan?”

Joan laughed. Such a clear, happy laugh! Everyone smiled on hearing it, and the old servant was no exception.

“Mr. Derrick, Sophia! We will not make company of him.”

“I’ll send in some buttered toast. I remember his liking for it.”

“Be careful with the butter,” cautioned Joan, the dimple in her cheek appearing as she ran lightly up the wide, shallow stairs. She made her way along a passage till she opened the door of her room.

It was very small, but it bore the characteristics of the owner—whitewashed walls, white dimity bed-hangings, and white dimity curtains in the wide casement window. The carpet was thin and threadbare, but there was a chintz-covered easy chair by the window, and a little table with books and writing materials upon it. A bowl of late roses was on the window ledge over the small dressing-table, and suspended from a mirror hanging on the wall was a bunch of fresh lavender, and a bookcase on the opposite side was crowded with well-worn, shabby books.

It did not take Joan long to tidy herself, but just for one moment she leant her elbows on her windowsill and gazed with far-seeing eyes over the scene before her. An old lawn sloped down to a row of beech trees; beyond, the fields rose up again till they met a belt of pines on the horizon. Behind these pines the sun was already slowly sinking, sending rosy rays across the dusky sky. Rooks were cawing in a rookery close by, there was a smell of wood fires, and a slight whiff of hot bread which delighted her senses.

“What a haven it is!”

Joan breathed the words; then a little shadow stole into her blue eyes.

“Oh, I hope they will be pleased—they must be!” A quick sigh escaped her, then she made her way downstairs and re-entered the study like a fresh breeze.

Derrick glanced at her as she sat down and began making the tea. He was three years her senior, and they had played together and learnt in this old rectory as a boy and girl when his grandfather had been the rector here, and Mr. Adair had been his curate and lived with his young family in a whitewashed cottage at the entrance to the village.

Mr. Adair had gone to a busy town later on, and had taken pupils. Derrick Colleton had gone to him there and renewed his acquaintance with his old playmate. Then he had gone to Oxford, and thence had drifted first into law, and then, not finding that satisfy either his purse or his intellect, had taken a post as private secretary to a member of the Cabinet. He had never lost his boyish spirits, and as his humorous, twinkling eyes met Joan’s, she laughed.

“I’d like to know your thoughts,” she said.

“I didn’t think I’d tumble into such domesticity,” he said. “Joan of the inkpot and of midnight studies I remember—never Joan of the tea-table!”

“But Dad must have his tea,” said Joan. “He and I have settled down here together with infinite peace. I left Girton two years ago.”

“And where is Mrs. Adair? Still abroad with Cecil?”

“They are coming home at the end of this week,” Mr. Adair said quickly. There was a light in his eye as he spoke.

Derrick looked round the room, then out into the dusky garden.

“It’s so queer your coming back here after all these years. I see my marks still upon that window shutter. I was shut and locked in here one day by my grandfather. He rued his deed when he opened the door. My knife had been busy on every bit of wood in the room!”

“You were an awful little brat!” said Joan, her dimple appearing.

“Yes,” said Mr. Adair gravely. “It is queer, I suppose, but very mercifully ordained by God, I consider. Sir Joseph, by giving me the living, has enabled us to be one united family again. I am sure this bracing country air will be quite as good for Cecil as that of the Swiss places in which she has been living, and the house will be far more comfortable for my dear wife.”

There was a moment’s silence. Derrick was casting his mind back to the narrow terraced house in a dingy street in which the Adairs had lived for the past ten years. He saw again Mrs. Adair moving about it in her restless, preoccupied fashion, her graceful figure and dainty dress—a strangely incongruous sight in that shabby house. He wondered if this country rectory would be more to her liking.

Then he turned to Joan.

“How’s the learning? I saw you had taken any amount of degrees and honours. What good is it going to do you?”

Joan’s eyes flashed.

“It has done me good. It has quickened and fed the mental part of me. It has developed—”

“Oh, Pax! Don’t flood me with your rhetoric. If you want to be pleasant to your neighbours, let the past be buried deep. Your Girton knowledge won’t be wanted here.”

“I’m not going to argue with you,” said Joan suddenly, smiling. “You’re only a man. All men are dreadfully afraid of cultured women.”

“I shall never be afraid of you, Joan—never!”

Sophia at this instant opened the door. She bore a plate of hot buttered toast, and when Derrick saw her, he seized it from her and wrung her by the hand.

“Good old Sophia, you’re going strong yet! And your toast is as balmy as ever!”

“Mr. Derrick, I hope you’re well.”

Sophia dropped an old-fashioned curtsy. She was evidently a privileged servant, for she went on:

“I knew your tea would be nothing without a bit of toast; and what the boy is, that will be the man. I fancy you, sir, going through life and looking for buttered toast and takin’ it as your right—the right to enjoy what other folks have worked to give you, which is, so to say, a parable. Buttered toast comes to some quite easy, but ’tis not always wise.”

“Oh, Sophia, stop,” said Joan, laughing. “Don’t give us a treatise on buttered toast. If you spoil Derrick, don’t blame him for being spoiled.”

Sophia edged towards the door. Looking over her shoulder, she said:

“Mr. Derrick be one of fortune’s favourites. He has never met discipline yet.”

“There, Derrick! Sophia knows all about you.”

Derrick nodded.

“Have you and Banty met yet?” he asked, munching his toast with much appreciation.

“Yes,” said Joan. “I have spoken to her after church. She is usually out when I call. I know Lady Gascoigne best. She is always at home. Banty and I are strangers; she has nothing left of the small girl I used to know. She was a fat baby then.”

“Only a couple of years younger than yourself,” said Derrick with a laugh. “Banty is very good sport. She’s as good a shot as her father, which is saying a good deal. What do you think of the cousin living with them? He’s a queer fish if ever there was one!”

“I haven’t met him. He has been up in town. Does he live here? Lady Gascoigne talks of him as if he is a kind of secretary or upper servant. He’s a Gascoigne, isn’t he?”

“He’s the son of a younger brother—Wilmot, his name is. He has travelled a good bit, I believe, is mad over books, and old Jossy is keeping him busy cataloguing his library and sorting out family chronicles. It’s the fashion nowadays to publish family reminiscences, and I believe this fellow is trying to do it. He’s too literary for me. Those book fellows are always such self-assertive brutes; I longed to pull his nose!”

“By which I know he snubbed you,” said Joan with her dimpling smile.

Mr. Adair had sat listening in silence; now he engaged Derrick’s attention by asking him questions about the glebe fields and various other matters upon which he hoped he might be able to throw some light.

Joan slipped away to finish her cart before darkness stopped her. Derrick came out to her on his way back to the Hall.

“So you’re settling down into a country parson’s daughter,” he said. “I heard you played the organ better than old Tabbs did. Had he chucked it before you came?”

“Was he the old schoolmaster? Yes; we have a modern schoolmistress now who is practising hard to become organist. She has no idea of time, unfortunately, which is funny, because of course she teaches part singing in school. No, Derrick; I love it here, but I am not settling down. Shall I tell you a secret?” She stood up, and a grave, earnest look came into her face. “Yesterday I had the offer of a post in a first-class high school which will bring me in from £150 to £200 a year.”

“Good for you! But, oh, my dear Joan, don’t you take to schoolmistressing! You don’t know how much better I like you in your present setting!”

“Being a man, that goes without saying,” said Joan cheerfully. “But I am panting for higher, wider interests. I don’t want to let my knowledge rust, and I love—I adore—imparting knowledge; they say I have the knack of it. Some, you know, have the brains, but not the faculty for teaching.”

“How can your father spare you?”

“That is the rub! Of course he could not, unless Mother and Cecil are here; but it would do Cecil such a lot of good to take my place and run the parish. She wants an interest in life. She is so much stronger than she thinks she is, and I dread her getting self-centred. Dad and I are hopeful that they will settle down. We’re going to do our very best to make them like it. Oh, what am I saying? But you know us, Derrick; it’s no good hiding it from you.”

“Not a little bit!” said Derrick hastily. “But mark my words, your mother is not old enough to settle down in this quiet spot. In your heart you want to be up and away, and so will she. Your mother won’t fit into this part. I’ll bet you ten quid she won’t!”

Joan put out her hand as if to ward off a blow.

“Don’t say it. Wait and see. Dad has been a new man since he came here—so much brighter and more hopeful. He said to me last night: ‘Please God your mother and I will spend our old age together here. It is all I ask.'”

Joan’s voice shook, then she laughed.

“Go away, Derrick; you’re making me too communicative, only I know you’re as safe as a post! Here, give me a hand and push this into the coachhouse. Have you seen our old pony? He is over twenty, I am told, but he goes like steam. We bought the cart and harness from Dray Farm, and they threw the pony in for an extra three pounds. Wanted a good home for him, they said. I like those Drays.”

Derrick took hold of the cart and pushed her aside. Then for an instant, he let his hand rest on her shoulder.

“Joan, for auld lang syne, don’t you leave poor Dominie in his old age! He’s worth more than brats of girls who don’t know one teacher from another.”

He gave her no time for reply, shouldered his gun, and vaulted clean over the white gate that led out into the road. Then, waving his hat, he cried:

“If Jossy doesn’t send you some of the pheasants that I help him to bring down, I’ll give the order to his keeper myself. Au revoir!”

Joan stood for a moment leaning her arms on the gate and watching his retreating figure in the dusk, then she gave a quick sigh and went indoors.

CHAPTER II

THE TRAVELLERS

JOAN was having a busy day. Her mother and sister were expected that afternoon. She had been up since daybreak; both she and her father were nervously anxious that the old rectory should make a good impression upon the travellers. With the assistance of the odd man, Joan had swept and rolled the lawn and paths, tied up straggling chrysanthemums, and brought a fair amount of order and tidiness into the sweet old-fashioned garden.

Sophia, after cleaning and scouring everything in the kitchen that she could lay her hands upon, was now immersed in cooking. The house fairly revelled in smells of hot cakes, hot tarts, hot bread, and a variety of other indications that the oven was doing its work in a satisfactory manner. Derrick had been as good as his word. A brace of pheasants had arrived at two o’clock, and Sophia seized them with a cook’s delight. When Joan remonstrated, telling her they were too fresh, she triumphantly showed her the label with the date attached.

“Three days old, Miss Joan, and just what is wanted for the mistress. The joint of beef will come in hot to-morrow and will eat cold on Sunday.”

So Joan let her have her way. She herself was in every room, assisted by the young housemaid; there were beds to make, linen and plate to be brought out of store cupboards; fresh cushions, and curtains, and tablecloths to take the place of shabby ones, flowers to be arranged, brass to be brightened, furniture to be polished. By half-past three in the afternoon Joan’s feet were aching, but her heart dancing. As she piled the wood logs on the drawing-room fire, and looked round the dainty little home-like room, she said to herself, “Mother will fall in love with it. We have never lived in such a sweet house before!”

She had worked hard at the drawing-room. She had bought some faded chintz curtains and hangings cheap at a country sale a few weeks before, and her clever fingers had cut out and made covers for the shabby, old, town furniture they had brought with them.

Bowls of red and gold chrysanthemums brightened the dark corners; some framed water-colours, the handiwork of Mrs. Adair when a girl, covered the walls, which had been freshly hung with a delicate cream paper; the high, narrow, white marble mantelpiece held a few choice bits of china, and all the newest and brightest books filled the low bookcases in the recesses on either side of the fireplace. Joan’s work-basket, the local paper, and some loose magazines on a small table gave a sense of homeliness to the room.

Joan pulled up two easy chairs to the fire; she rearranged the cushions on the chintz couch; then she glanced out of the window, and saw her father pacing up and down the gravel path. He was waiting for the country fly which was to take him to the station to meet his wife. He looked very bent and old, and leaned more on his stick than he had ever done before; and yet she knew, although she could not see his face, that his eyes were shining with hope and expectancy, that the wrinkles were smoothed out upon his brow, that his soul was having one of the happiest times in his life. They had had several home-comings of this kind before, but never one under such favourable circumstances as this. As Joan watched him, sudden tears filled her eyes.

“Why, oh why are there so many unfulfilled desires!” she exclaimed passionately. “Why are we such an ill-assorted family? Oh, God!”—And her whole soul rose up in its breathless longing—”Oh, God, don’t let him be disappointed this time!”

Mr. Adair, walking up and down with a smile upon his lips, was living in the past. Step by step he was watching himself as a young man from the time he went to his first curacy. How well he remembered the beautiful old abbey church in which he was so fortunate as to find himself! Would he ever forget the first time he was introduced by his rector, at a little evening gathering, to old General Lovell and his three beautiful and clever young daughters? He remembered now the little thrill that ran through him when, after some conversation in which the General did most of the talking and he the listening, he was clapped heartily on the shoulder by the old soldier, with the words:

“Quite glad to speak with a black coat or two; am sick of the red ones. Come and see me, young fellow—come and dine with us to-morrow night!”

How shyly and delightedly he had gone! How his simple soul was dazed at first by the bright brilliance of the Misses Lovell, and then attracted and then bewitched by the fascination of the one who always seemed to understand him and to make allowances for his awkwardness! Cecilia Lovell had been very good to him in those days.

At first he had felt he was an outsider, a stranger in their set. The Lovells had always been a race of soldiers, and very distinguished ones. His forbears for centuries had been quiet churchmen, not very clever, not very gifted, but men of simple gentle lives and unselfish aims—perhaps of narrow prejudices and small, one-sided views. He could not look at life as the Lovells did; they could not look at life as he did. But Cecilia always seemed to fill the breach; and then, on one unforgettable day, he had breathed in her ear the old, old question, and, with shy averted face, she had given him his answer and the desire of his heart.

The old General had been delighted. His motherless daughters were both a care and anxiety to him. Gout was troubling him. He was impatient to go abroad and try a cure, so he pushed on the marriage, and in three months’ time, Cecilia Lovell became Mrs. Adair. Her father was generous, and gave her a liberal allowance.

In spite of a curate’s pay, the young couple were very fairly comfortable, until children began to arrive. Then John Adair gave up his curacy for a better stipend, and settled in the white cottage in Old Bellerton village. Two boys and two girls played with the orphan grandson of the rector, and for a time life dealt gently with the curate and his family. But Cecilia did not make a good curate’s wife; she had an impatient intolerance of a small village life, and never rested till she got her husband to one of the large Midland towns.

The rector looked back to his life there with regret that he had not been able to make his wife happy and content in the work which he loved. He was a simple man, and not a clever one; he read only theology; his wife’s broader culture puzzled and distressed him. She made no secret of her dislike to the parishioners, and when her elder boy developed delicacy in one of his lungs, she took him for months at a time to her old home in the south.

Gradually she stayed less and less with her husband. An elderly governess taught the girls and looked after the house when she was away. Then the boys were placed at school. Their mother’s idea was for them to enter the Army; her husband objected because of expense, and because he was a man of peace and had a horror of war.

Eventually the elder passed into Sandhurst, went out to India, and died of enteric six months afterwards. The younger one was now his mother’s hope. But he developed the same delicacy of lung when nineteen, and though his mother, helped by her father, was able to take him out to Davos, he died of a rapid decline.

Mrs. Adair returned to her husband and girls like a woman without heart and hope. Joan was always strong, but Cecil was as delicate-looking as the boys had been, and, nervously fearing she would go the same way, Mrs. Adair took her continually to Switzerland and to the Riviera by turns. The taste for continental life crept into her veins; she rarely was at home for more than three months in the year, and though doctors assured her that Cecil’s lungs were absolutely sound, she refused to believe them.

The death of General Lovell made it easier for her to gratify her love for sunny climes and dry, bracing air. But she had never been able to economise, and John Adair had the greatest difficulty in sending her as much money as she wanted. To ease the strain, he took pupils and coached them for college.

When Joan’s education was nearly finished, her godmother, Lady Alicia Fairchild, a lifelong friend of her mother’s, determined to give her a chance of making an independent career. She was brilliantly clever, and her governess could teach her nothing more. So Lady Alicia sent her to Girton, and she had worked hard and successfully there. Then, at twenty-two, she came back to her father, and took the household reins into her hands. She did not anticipate staying at home, but circumstances kept her there. The old governess had left, and the house was sadly needing a mistress.

Mr. Adair got the offer of his present living, and then Joan threw her heart and soul into the move. Mr. Adair had always been painfully conscious that his wife could not adapt herself to the shabby terraced house and the economical life of a poor parson. Now his heart swelled with thankfulness. This living was worth £500 a year, and the rectory was a roomy, comfortable house.

As he paced up and down the gravel path, he felt that good times were coming, that he and his wife would settle down in this quiet spot, and draw closer together than ever they had done before. His loyalty and admiration for his wife had never swerved. He knew she was impatient and irritable at times; he could never forget one revelation which she made to him in a moment of furious passion—and that was that she had married him partly to please her father, partly out of pique, as the man she really loved had jilted her; but in spite of this, he trusted that time and his undying love would win her and compel her to come closer to him.

Joan’s clear, keen insight showed her both her father’s and mother’s point of view. Mrs. Adair was distinctly her husband’s superior in intellect; she tried, when young, to introduce him to a wider and a higher level of thought, but a certain denseness, some obstinacy, and the firm conviction that a man: and moreover a clergyman, could not and ought not to let his wife dictate or attempt to teach him, made all such attempts a dead failure. She now treated her husband with good-natured indifference. Sometimes Joan felt angry at her mother’s attitude; sometimes she felt sorry for her. Now, her sympathies were mostly with her father.

When the fly arrived, she ran out, buttoned up his greatcoat for him, and besought him not to wait about on the cold, draughty platform of the little station.

“Take care of yourself, Dad. I know you will be hours too early for the train.”

Mr. Adair had a horror of being late for anything, and his daughter often told him laughingly that his waiting hours consumed a good many days in the course of a twelvemonth.

When the fly was off, Joan ran back into the house. Sophia came out of the kitchen.

“Has the master gone? He be in a dreadful rumpus to-day, Miss Joan.”

Sophia had been with them all since they were children; her tongue was never checked, for her heart was loyal and true.

“I think you’ve been in the greatest fuss, Sophia. I’ve heard you giving it unsparingly to poor Jenny.”

“She’s just one of these shiftless girls, Miss Joan. It’s terrible to think of the children unborn, when their parents are such worthless stuff.”

Joan’s laugh rang out merrily.

“You dear old soul! Go back to your kitchen. Thank goodness, I don’t worry over non-existent beings. And don’t begin to talk to Jenny of her children when she’s still unmarried.”

“What do you take me for!” said Sophia, in a shocked tone. Then she said: “Put on your pretty silk dress to-night, Miss Joan. Show the mistress your best.”

Joan shook her head. “Not to-night. They’ll be tired with travelling. We shall all have our dinner and go to bed.”

Sophia disappeared. Joan went into the fire-lit drawing-room, and surveyed herself for a moment in a long mirror there. She was clad in a pale grey serge, rather Quakerish in style, with fine lace collar and cuffs. It served to show off her golden-brown head and bright colouring, but she shook her head at herself. “I always feel like a milkmaid beside Cecil.” Then she took some pink roses out of a bowl and stuck them in her belt.

It was four miles to the station. The time of waiting seemed long. Joan could neither read nor work; but at length the carriage wheels were heard, and the next moment, Joan and the servants were out in the old porch welcoming the tired travellers.

Joan led her mother straight into the drawing-room, and undid her fur cloak before the fire.

Mrs. Adair looked about her, then held out her delicate, white hands towards the fire and shivered.

She was slim and very tall, a woman who was growing old gracefully, and more beautiful now than either of her daughters. Her snow-white hair, clustering round her brow, seemed to soften the rather hard-cut contour of her face. Her blue eyes were almost as deep and bright as Joan’s, though her dark brows and lashes made them more severe. When she smiled at people, she could make them do anything, but she was hardly smiling now.

“We have had a cold journey. Cecil is very tired. We slept the night in town. Of course, we could not come right through. London welcomed us, as usual, with a thick fog. And you seem bitterly cold down here.”

“It’s very healthy; we are on high ground.”

“Oh, I know, my dear Joan, I know. I have not forgotten the terribly long winters, when fires were a scarcity and it was doubtful whether one was justified in buying warm gloves for all the tiny chilblained hands. Your father speaks as if it is a new neighbourhood to which we are coming. He forgets that I know every inch of every road only too well.”

“I suppose you remember this room?”

Joan determined to be cheerful.

Mrs. Adair looked round it in a critical sort of way.

“Yes. I give you credit for improving its looks. The poor curate’s wife was invited sometimes up to dinner, and sorely was she bored as she sat in this room receiving good advice from the rector’s wife!”

Then she smiled sadly.

“Don’t torture me with recollections, Joan dear. When I was last here, I had my boys. It cannot be otherwise than sad, returning to this part.”

Joan’s hopes sank. She felt she had no heart to show her mother over the house. Was it a mistake coming back to the place which held such unpleasant memories for her?

And then through the door came Cecil, like a flash of light.

“Is Mother here? Oh, what a dear, wee, cosy room! Sophia has given me two smacking kisses, Mother, and Jenny—is that her name?—looked as if she were going to follow suit. I tried to freeze her, but I haven’t the inches. Joan, you look blooming! My feet are like ice. How nice it is to be home.”

Cecil had drawn a low chair up to the fire as she talked, and was now untying her shoes. Slipping them off, she held out silk-clad feet to the fire.

Joan shook her head at her. “Of course you’re cold in such flimsy stockings—open-work, too! I’ll lend you a pair of my sensible ones if you come upstairs.”

“Oh, I can’t stand thick stockings.”

Cecil spoke in the accents of a spoiled child. “Tell me when the luggage is up,” she said. “I’ll toast myself here meanwhile.”

Joan slipped away. Her father and Benson, the odd man, were struggling in the hall with trunks, hat-boxes, portmanteaus, and every kind of bundle and bag. Joan soon sorted out the light luggage, and made Jenny help her in taking it up to the rooms. The trunks were gradually brought up by the flyman and Benson. When the hall was clear, Mr. Adair went into the drawing-room.

“Welcome home, my dear!” he said, stepping forward and kissing his wife. Then, patting her shoulder, he added, with the tactlessness of a man, “And I’m hoping, please God, that you won’t be wanting to run away from your poor old husband, now that you have such a pretty home as this.”

“My dear John,” said Mrs. Adair, moving very slightly away from him, “do you forget that our sojourn abroad has been by doctor’s orders?”

“Yes, yes, my dear—of course I know. But little Cecil is getting stronger, and our bracing heath and pines will be the very thing for her.”

Cecil looked up at him from her seat by the fire and laughed. “I believe, like Diogenes, you would be happy in a tub, Dad! I am sure your letters led me to expect a mansion, a country seat! You see, I never remembered the place; I was too small when we left. Mother tried to prepare me. It’s a duck of a place, and, for winter, very cosy, but in summer, I should feel I couldn’t breathe. The ceilings seem down on one’s head.”

Mrs. Adair glanced quickly and anxiously at her daughter as she spoke.

“We must have the windows open,” she said. “Do you feel this room airless, Cecil? It is the contrast after our big rooms in the hotels.”

“Oh, it’s all right, Mother. Don’t you worry. I’m too cold at present to want anything but a hot fire. Dad, dear, would you mind bringing me my handbag in the hall? I left my handkerchief in it. I’m so tired or I would fetch it myself.”

Mr. Adair left the room at once, and went upstairs to find the bag.

Joan would not let him take it down again. “I’ll do it, Dad, dear. Cecil is a lazy monkey not to fetch it herself. You must not spoil her. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. You will find hot water in your room.”

“My dear Joan,” said Mr. Adair, standing still in the passage, and speaking in a dispirited tone, “they find the rooms too small and airless!”

“Nonsense!” said Joan, laughing.

She ran downstairs, afraid to trust herself to say anything further. She chatted gaily to her mother till she had seen her comfortably established in her room upstairs. Then she went down to put final touches on the dinner-table, and then she slipped into her black evening dress.

They all met in the quaint oak-raftered dining-room, a little later, in better spirits.

Sophia’s soup, her pheasants, and her sweet omelette were beyond reproach.

When dessert was on the table, Joan pointed to the apples and pears in triumph.

“Out of our own orchard! We are self-supplying. All our vegetables, chickens, eggs—and a fat pig to be made into bacon after Christmas—are our very own. Isn’t it delicious, Cecil?”

“It’s rather a change after that smoky, grimy Nuthampstead,” said Cecil. She leant back in her chair looking exceedingly pretty. She was very slight and small, with an ivory pallor, dark eyes and hair, and delicate features. To-night a faint rose blush was on her cheeks.

“A regular little aristocrat from the top of her head to the soles of her feet,” Sophia said of her; and it was true.

Cecil was a reproduction of Mrs. Adair’s own mother, who had been a very noted beauty at Court. Her clothes were never anything but dainty in the extreme, though her mother and she had the good taste to dress very quietly. To-night she had a simple blue crepon gown, with old lace softening the bodice. Her dark hair was bound round with a silver braid, but her neck and arms were white as the driven snow, and her face was almost ethereal in its delicate beauty.

Joan was rather silent. She let her mother do most of the talking. Mrs. Adair had many amusing anecdotes to tell and talked of many people and things.

“It was so strange,” she said. “We met General Long in town, and he brought his son to see us. He is now a captain in the 12th Hussars, and just home from India. They dined with us. It was interesting hearing about India again. But Harry Long gave an alarming account of the sedition about the Bengal district. He says it is simply seething with an undercurrent of hatred to British rule. People make light of it and refuse to believe it—just as in the days before the Indian Mutiny. I suppose we shall go on making light of it until a crisis comes, and then there will be a lot of unnecessary suffering and bloodshed.”

“Oh, I hope not,” said Mr. Adair, looking across at his wife with startled eyes. “I hope we shall not have another mutiny or war in India. Mrs. White’s son has just gone out to India. It would break the poor old body’s heart if anything happened to her boy.”

A little smile flitted across Mrs. Adair’s face. “We will hope young White will have his life preserved, my dear John. But there are a few more English to be considered besides him in our Indian Empire?”

“Yes, yes—of course. War is horrible. May God preserve us from it; and Indian wars always seem worse than those nearer home. How thankful we must be that we have no sons out there!”

Joan saw her mother wince and quiver as if someone had struck her across the face. She stopped talking, and left the table almost directly.

Mr. Adair was perfectly oblivious that, as usual, he had blundered. He sat on in the dining-room and smoked his pipe over the fire, smiling happily to himself.

“It’s nice to have them home again. We shall be together now!”

Mrs. Adair and Cecil retired very early to rest, and Joan was nothing loath to follow their example. She had had a tiring day, and foresaw a good many tiring ones still to come.

CHAPTER III

A BUSY DAY

THE next day was Saturday, and if Joan had not had a fund of cheeriness and good temper in herself and an unflinching amount of pluck and patience, she would never have been able to get through it as happily and easily as she did.

Mrs. Adair breakfasted in bed. Cecil arrived downstairs at ten o’clock and expected Joan to sit and talk to her whilst she dawdled over her cup of tea and eggs and bacon.

“What can you have to do? Let Jenny alone; you are always fussing after her.”

“My dear Cecil, I am due at the schoolhouse to receive club money at ten. I must fly. I expect you will be busy unpacking this morning, so you won’t miss me. I wonder if you would mind putting your breakfast things together on a tray. This is a busy morning with us. I shall be back in an hour’s time. Do you think you could darn a hole in Dad’s surplice? The laundress has torn it in the wash.”

Cecil laughed a little.

“You are determined to set me to work; but I think after our hard travelling you might allow me a day’s grace. I haven’t even been shown over the house yet.”

Joan was gone. Cecil saw her flying down the garden path, but she was stopped at the gate by a small boy. Cecil wondered at the serene, cheerful way in which Joan seemed to be talking to him. Then she went on, but a little slower, for the small boy was trying to keep pace with her. Cecil smiled to herself, then yawned.

“I can’t take the yoke upon me yet. I do hate the ways of a parson’s house! But I’ll go and unpack, and I suppose I might put up my breakfast things, though why that small Jenny can’t come in and do it, is past my comprehension.”

She gathered the crockery together, placed it on a tray, and actually carried it out to the kitchen.

Sophia, as usual, was immersed in cooking, but her kitchen was beautifully clean, and as tidy and bright as a new pin.

“Here I am, you see, Sophia—back into the midst of the daily drudgery!”

“And why should you not be?” demanded Sophia, rolling up the dough at which she was Working with quick, deft hands, and looking up at Cecil with her small, bright eyes. “Why should you not be here to bring a bit of ease into the house by a pair of willing hands? ‘Tis not right, Miss Cecil, to make life a burden to Miss Joan.”

“Joan! She never feels anything a burden.”

“That’s your mistake. What brings burdens into the world? ‘Tis some folks shifting their share of work to others’ shoulders. If all did their share, none would be overburdened.”

Cecil put her tray down and swung herself up lightly on the old dresser, where she sat swinging her feet, ready to argue. She loved a good argument with Sophia upon any subject.

“But that is folly, Sophia; that is the mistake the Socialists make. They want everyone to be equal. How can they be when some are weak and some are strong? You want a dull, monotonous creation, which God did not want, or He would have made it. You want everyone made after the same pattern, with the same characters and dispositions, all taking the same share of life’s work. Imagine it! When a man who knows he can do it, and has the ambition to bear big burdens comes along, he must never want to do anything or bear anything more than his neighbour! Don’t you see what folly it would be?”

“You may be clever with your tongue, Miss Cecil, but you’re too clever to let all your powers rust, and sit still with folded hands whilst others wait on you. You may not be as strong as Miss Joan, but you be quite strong enough to take those cups and plates into the back kitchen and wash them. It’s what Miss Joan would do, were she in your place.”

“But she isn’t, and she never will be. And I live by principles of my own, Sophia, and I never fold my hands, never! I don’t know how to do it. It’s one of my principles never to interfere with anybody else’s business. I should say the washing up of these plates is Jenny’s business, is it not? Or is it yours? It certainly is not mine.”

She slipped down from the dresser and went out of the kitchen humming gaily to herself.

Sophia shook her head after her retreating figure.

“She has been spoilt all her life, and is just becoming one of these useless creatures which are a curse to them that begat them.”

Joan did not return to the house till nearly twelve.

“I’ve been delayed. I had to go and see a sick woman,” she said, meeting her sister sauntering up and down the garden. “I generally go into the church and clean the brasses at this time. Will you come with me, Cecil? And if you were to pick a few flowers and bring with you, I should be glad. Where is Mother?”

“Well,” said Cecil, laughing; “she is preparing a sad sheaf of bills for Dad. She wants to go through accounts with him as soon as she can. He has kept us terribly short of money, Joan! I can’t tell you how awkward it has been!”

“My dear Cecil, his bank balance is much overdrawn now. We have had great expenses settling in here. Of course it will be better in time. I do hope you and Mother will make a good long stay here now: You must try and get her to do it. Then we shall pull round. It has been a great strain on him to find the necessary money.”

Cecil did not answer, but she accompanied Joan into the church and put a few flowers into the vases there, and a little bunch of autumn roses on the grave of the late rector, whose widow had requested that it might be done. Then they came back to the house and found their father and mother deep in accounts in the study.

Mr. Adair came to the lunch table with a harassed look upon his face and a little extra stoop from his shoulders. Mrs. Adair had flushed cheeks and bright eyes. It was rather a silent meal. Joan and Cecil did most of the talking.

As the rector left the room after lunch, he said to his wife, with his usual smiling face:

“I am not to be seen on Saturday afternoons till tea-time. But you know my parson’s habits, my dear. If Cecil would like to take you for a drive, we have the pony and jingle ready for your use. Joan, you’ll be having the choir practice at three, I suppose?”

“Yes,” responded Joan; “we’ll respect your sermon-making, Dad, and won’t come near you.”

“And you and I will finish and square up accounts on Monday,” said the rector, turning to his wife.

“Oh, very well. I am not in a hurry, I assure you.”

They separated. Joan was conscious of disturbance in the atmosphere. She went up to her room for a few minutes’ quiet. She felt to-day as if she could not overtake things. Her mother had asked her to come and help her unpack. Sophia expected her to give out the linen to be aired, Jenny was hopelessly behind with everything. It was a lovely day, and apples ought to be picked in the orchard. The flowers in the drawing-room and dining-room required to be freshened up.

“Oh!” she thought. “For six pairs of hands at least!”

And then she sat down by her window.

“I will not let my soul get chafed if I can help it!” she said.

She drew a well-worn little Bible to her. The quiet and fresh coolness of her room soothed her. She turned to her morning reading, the lesson for the day. She had read it hastily when she rose that morning, but a whiff of its fragrance had been with her ever since; and now she looked at the verse again which had been simmering in her mind:

   “Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power unto all patience, and long-suffering with joyfulness.”

“Yes!” she mused. “Patience, long-suffering, joyfulness—a strange mixture, but just what I need!”

A soft, happy glow came into her blue eyes. Joan’s religion was real and very precious to her; but she could not talk about it. For a moment she closed her eyes, and her lips moved. Then a robin perched on her window ledge outside and burst into his autumn song.

Joan smiled happily as she got up from her seat.

“And that small scamp hasn’t the least idea how he is going to be fed through the winter!”

She sang under her breath as she went into her mother’s room. For the rest of the afternoon she was more than busy, but at tea-time she sat down to enjoy a well-earned rest. They gathered in the low, quaint drawing-room.

Mr. Adair asked that a cup of tea should be sent him. He was not a clever man and sometimes found it very difficult not to repeat himself from Sunday to Sunday. To-day he was nervously anxious that his sermon should be appreciated by his intellectual wife. He sat looking over some very old sermons of his, written with the fire and energy of youth, if not with the mellowed experience of some of his later ones.

And at length, he remembered a sermon he had preached in the abbey church in which he had first seen his wife. He remembered two or three people had complimented him upon it, General Lovell amongst the number. He had never preached from the same text again. He looked over it, then determined to take it and improve upon it, if he could. He had a longing in the depths of his heart that his wife should appreciate and express her appreciation of his preaching. She was not given to church-going; she hardly ever attended the weekday services, and when she was home, had a habit of going to see some of her many friends, and staying with them for the week-end.

Very carefully did the rector read over his old sermon. Very earnestly did he pray, as he revised it, that it might not only be the means of helping and blessing his flock, but in particular his wife and family.

After tea, Joan produced a large work-basket.

“You look like the mother of a family,” laughed Cecil. She was sitting on the hearth-rug doing nothing.

Her mother was at an old-fashioned davenport writing letters.

“The house linen is in a very ancient stage. Come, Cecil, help me. Here is a thimble.”

“I know you are going to hand me over the surplice I would not do this morning. Do you always go on like this, Joan? It is sordid drudgery. You are just an upper servant in the house.”

“I won’t quote a verse which I’m sure you know, about ‘the trivial round, the common task.’ Things must be done, Cecil, dear. You would not like to have come back to a dirty, untidy, uncared-for home.”

“It’s rather a poor, shabby one,” said Cecil discontentedly.

She rubbed a slipper up and down the threadbare carpet and looked round the room with a puckered brow.

“That’s unkind of you,” said Joan good-humouredly. “If you only knew how hard I worked to make you like it! And though we’ve been here such a short time, I have already learnt to love it. You haven’t seen its beauties. I look out of my window and watch the sunsets behind that belt of pines. They are tipped with gold, and their straight, pure pink trunks are edged with crimson. The owls begin to hoot. Sometimes I put a shawl over my head and go out on that little hillock of heather at the back of our orchard, and when I have inhaled all the delicious odour of pines and heather, I turn back into the house. Its quaint rooms and passages, and the country smell in it is joy to me.”

“I feel as if I can hardly breathe here!” Cecil drew a long sigh, then she coughed, shivered, and drew near to the fire. “I find it cold and depressing. I’m not an out-of-door person like you. I don’t revel in open windows, and cold baths, and draughts all day long.”

“Have you caught a fresh cold Cecil?” Mrs. Adair showed that she was not oblivious of the conversation going on. Her tone was anxious.

“Oh, no,” said Cecil carelessly. “I’m much as usual. Is my bedroom fire lighted yet, Joan? I think I’ll go up and have a laze before dinner.”

Joan dropped her work and left the room. In a few minutes she came back.

“It is lighted now, Cecil, and the room does not seem cold.”

Cecil nodded, then got up from the rug and went out.

Joan took up her work again.

Her mother left her writing and came to the fire.

“I want to have a little talk with you, Joan. You seem like a will-o’-the-wisp—in and out of the house a dozen times in an hour.”

“Saturday is a busy day, Mother; but I am quiet now.”

Joan looked up, and her blue eyes encountered her mother’s dark, bright ones fixed upon her.

“I am writing to Lady Alicia; I had a letter from her to-day. She asks me if you have snapped your links with college for good and for all, or whether your career there has led to anything?”

Joan darned away at the surplice, but her cheeks grew hot. She had not meant to confide in her mother at present, but there seemed no help for it now.

“I have been offered the post of a teacher in a high school, Mother. It is a good thing. I should begin with a hundred and fifty pounds a year.”

Mrs. Adair was silent for a moment.

“Have you given your answer yet?”

“No; I must in a week’s time.”

“Do you want to take it up?”

Joan’s eyes gleamed.

“I should love it above everything!” she said.

“The idea is most distasteful to me,” said Mrs. Adair. “But I know girls do it nowadays. I suppose I ought to adapt my thoughts and feelings to the times.”

“Of course,” Joan said quickly and a little nervously, “I feel we could not leave Dad alone now; but I hoped that perhaps Cecil would be strong enough to stay here and help in the parish.”

“Cecil will never be strong enough for parish work,” Mrs. Adair said decidedly. “I am in continual anxiety over her. She looks as if a breath of wind could carry her away. Our doctor at Cannes told me that sunshine was absolutely essential to her. He advised Algiers this winter, but I suppose it is impossible.”

“I believe she would be quite happy and well here,” said Joan desperately; “it is so very healthy, Mother.”

“I did not find it so when you were children,” said Mrs. Adair bitterly. “My memory takes me back to the biting east winds every spring, and the struggle to keep the little ones warm and free from colds and chilblains through the long winters. It laid the seeds of disease in the boys, and made Cecil what she is at present.”

“Oh, Mother!” gasped Joan. “I had no idea you felt like this about it. We ought not to have come.”

“Beggars cannot be choosers. It gives us an extra two hundred pounds a year, and it is all right for you and your father.”

“Are you not—not going to try a winter here?” asked Joan falteringly.

“I don’t think it will be possible. In any case, Cecil cannot take your place, and parish work is above and beyond me. I never ought to have been a parson’s wife, and that is the simple truth. The parish comes before the home with your father. He told me that six months after we were married. I, like the silly child I was, thought only of the cosy home I was going to make and keep for him. The parish was of no account in my eyes then.”

Mrs. Adair smiled, but there was a wistful sadness in her tone. Joan looked at her and thought that she had never seen her mother look more beautiful. As a little child she had adored her, but Mrs. Adair had given most of her affection to the delicate little daughter, and not to the healthy, rosy romp. Joan and her mother, in spite of intellectual sympathies, had always lived apart from each other, and there was a certain amount of constraint between them now.

Yet Mrs. Adair had never been quite so confidential with Joan before. The girl’s warm heart quickened and glowed. She dropped her work and went down on her knees before her mother impulsively. Taking her hands in hers, she said:

“Mother, dear, Dad is getting old. He may have made mistakes when he was a young man, but one can’t blame him for his enthusiasm for work. Now he appreciates his home very much. If you could only have heard him since he has been here! ‘Joan, don’t you think your mother will like it? I have cut down that elm to give her a peep of the heath from her window! She must like the space and room in this old, rambling house!’ Oh, Mother! His one desire has been that our home should contain us all, as it used to long ago.”

Mrs. Adair looked into the glowing fire in front of her. She did not withdraw her hands from Joan’s clasp; but her voice came in its cold frostiness like a cold water douche upon Joan’s hot spirit.

“My dear, you talk as if I am wilfully staying away from you from mere caprice. Surely you know that it is Cecil’s health that keeps us abroad. I have not found fault with the house. I think you have done wonders in it. Naturally the small, low rooms seem airless to us after our lofty hotel rooms abroad, but you have done your best to make them comfortable. And now there is another matter I must mention. You are under-staffed. It is not possible to work a house of this size comfortably with two maids. As Cecil says, you are wearing yourself out doing the work of a servant half your days. And this little Jenny is too young for her duties. Get a third maid as quickly as you can. She will ease everyone all round. Sophia may know of some one locally; she is a native of this place and had a large family of brothers and sisters, if I remember rightly.”

“But,” said Joan, going back to her chair and taking up her work again; “I am not always in such a bustle as you have seen me. When Dad and I are alone, we get along without a ripple. Of course, every extra person makes a difference, and the extra fires, and the waiting, and the novelty of it has rather turned Jenny’s head and made her appear less efficient than she really is. We have to economise just now, because we have had such heavy expenses. Of course, if—if you are not going away just yet—we can get extra help. You see, Mother, if I took this post which is offered to me, I could give Dad some material help. It is rather a puzzle to me how to act.”

Mrs. Adair was about to speak, when the door opened and the rector came in rubbing his hands cheerfully.

“Well, Cecilia, dearest, it is delightful to come in and find you here. I have earned a rest, I consider.”

He pulled up an easy chair to the fire, then leant over and patted his wife’s hand caressingly. “How is your baby? It’s such a lovely moonlight night. I’m hoping for a fine day to-morrow. Times have altered since we were here before. I have only two services to take in this village. Old Bradsbrook is worked from Nettleburn, so you see I need no curate. I have never felt heartier in my life! And I really believe both you and little Cecil will soon derive the greatest benefit from our bracing air. Joan, the squire has just sent in another brace of pheasants. Very kind of him, isn’t it? You will like to renew your acquaintance with Lady Gascoigne, will you not, Cecilia? You and she always got on so well together.”

“Did we? I forget.”

Mrs. Adair rose from her chair and went across to her writing-table.

“I must finish my letters,” she said. “The post goes at seven, does it not?”

Mr. Adair’s face fell. He dearly loved a chat between tea and dinner. He and Joan generally talked over the village at this time, and told each other any interesting bits of information which it had been their lot to gather during the day. And he had been looking forward to a firelight chat with his wife. He had so many things to tell her, and somehow or other he had hardly seen her since she had arrived. For a moment he sank back into his chair like an old man; then his natural liking for country gossip could not be restrained.

“Joan,” he said in a husky, penetrating whisper, “Rolleston Court is opened. Major Armitage returned two days ago.”

“Please don’t whisper, John; it is so distracting. You won’t disturb me in the least if you talk.”

Mrs. Adair half turned in her chair as she spoke. Her husband brightened up.

“Very well, my dear. You are clever enough to write, I know, and give half an ear to my news at the same time.”

“And has Major Armitage brought back a wife with him, Dad?” Joan asked with interest.

“No; he is quite alone. Rather strange, isn’t it? And it seems old Mrs. Bone was officious enough to ask after his lady, and when she was coming. He told her he had no lady coming, and dismissed her on the spot. She is dreadfully put out. He paid her a month’s wages, and said she would not suit him. And now Sophia’s widowed sister, Maria Bucke, has been engaged by him. You remember the rivalry between her and Mrs. Bone as to which should get the post as his housekeeper. Of course, Maria is triumphant.”

“And Sophia will be delighted. But what a martinet he must be! Does he think a country village will not talk when such dainty furniture comes down by rail? Old Mrs. Bone told me herself that there is a most exquisite little boudoir fitted up for a lady’s use, even down to a work-basket.”

“Oh, how you gossip!”

Mrs. Adair said it with her light laugh, and Joan joined her in the laugh.

“Major Armitage is the centre of our interest just now, Mother. After shutting up the place all these years because he is too poor to live there, he has come into money and has returned to it. He has spared no money in doing it up. We quite expected he was going to be married.”

“We met him in Italy last year,” said Mrs. Adair, letting her pen drop between her fingers. “He is a great musician. I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as listening to him playing in a little monastery chapel out in the country. We were passing by, and it was like music from another world. We were told afterwards who it was that was playing. He is a peculiar man—very reserved—and as a rule will not go into society. I suppose he felt leaving the Service very much. Was it not blindness that made him do it?”

“Yes,” said Joan. “Lady Gascoigne was talking about him the other day. It was in the Boer War. They said he would lose his sight, and he sent in his papers; and then, four years afterwards, a clever oculist cured him completely.”

“I can’t imagine what he will do with himself down here,” said Mrs. Adair. Then she went on with her writing.

Joan and her father chatted on until the dressing bell for dinner sounded.

Both Mrs. Adair and Cecil went to bed very early.

As Joan lay her head on her pillow, she went over again in her mind her short talk with her mother.

“It will break Dad’s heart if they go off again! I wish—I wish—Oh, why does marriage sometimes bring such a gulf between husband and wife? It makes one dread it for oneself!”

CHAPTER IV

RECTORY LIFE

SUNDAY morning was bright and clear, but Mr. Adair came to breakfast with a dejected air.

“Your mother is not very well. She is staying in bed,” he said to Joan.

It was so like old times that Joan almost smiled. She was sorry for her father, for he had set his heart on seeing his wife in church that morning, and the disappointment was great. Joan was hurrying through her morning duties, for Sunday school claimed her at ten, and she went straight into church afterwards. As she was going out of the house, Cecil came down the stairs.

“Are you coming to church?” Joan asked.

“I don’t feel much like it. Is the church warmed properly?”

“As warm as a toast. Do come, Cecil. Dad will be so sorry if you don’t.”

“Shall I see Major Armitage there?” Cecil asked, mischief in her eyes. “I rather took a liking to him abroad. I was the only woman he would speak to in the hotel.”

Joan’s rather impatient spirit got the better of her. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What is church for?”

“To meet one’s neighbours,” said Cecil, provokingly, “and criticise best hats and coats.”

Joan slammed the door after her.

“She’s as godless as a heathen!”

But before she got to school, she was taking herself to task for impatience.

“I shall never win her if I am so hot-tempered. How badly I have begun the day!”

Her class soothed her. Joan was a born lover of children, and they all adored her. When she went into church, and took her seat at the organ, she forgot all her vexations. The little church was full, for Mr. Adair was already winning the hearts of his people by his simple kindliness and whole-hearted interest in every individual.

Cecil came in late. She sat alone in the rectory seat, and hardly hid her curiosity about the various members of the congregation. The squire’s large seat was full. Sir Joseph and Lady Gascoigne were most regular in their attendance at church. Sir Joseph was the rector’s churchwarden. Their daughter Rose, or Banty as she was usually called, was with them, also Wilmot Gascoigne, Derrick, and two other men who had been asked down for shooting.

Behind them sat the doctor’s wife, a pretty little woman, with two fascinating small boys. A maiden lady completed the circle of Old Bellerton society; but following Cecil’s entrance came Major Armitage. He slipped into the last seat next the door, and was the first to leave the church. Cecil’s hopes of speaking to him were frustrated. She was looking very pretty, dressed in a pale blue cloth coat and skirt and black furs. When Derrick came up to her after church, she greeted him warmly.

“You haven’t grown much,” were his first words.

“Don’t make personal remarks, or I shall do the same. Do come back to lunch with us. It is so dull. I feel I could talk to a pump, I’m so bored.”

“I couldn’t be bored if I lived in the same house as Joan!” He tried to look severe, but failed.

Then the Gascoignes came up. Derrick did not accept the invitation to lunch, but he had a word aside with Joan.

“How are things going? Are they humming?”

Joan smiled.

“Oh, well—we’ve hardly shaken down yet.”

“Get the little malingerer to buckle to!”

“Oh, hush, Derrick! I won’t have it.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“She’s a radiant picture of health and beauty.”

“Yes,” said Joan heartily. “I love to watch her. You know how I always have admired Cecil, though I suppose, as she belongs to me, I ought not to do it. I must speak to Mrs. Blount.”

She nodded to him and crossed the road to speak to the doctor’s wife. The boys, Harry and Alan, seized hold of her.

“You told us you would show us where nuts grow!”

“We’re waiting for you to come out with us.”

“I can’t do it yet,” Joan told them.

They hung upon her arms.

“You must fix a day now. She must, Mums. She promised.”

“Well, I’ll try next Wednesday afternoon,” Joan told them.

They were pacified. Then Miss Borfield, who lived in a tiny cottage at the end of the village, came up to talk to Joan of a sick girl in whom she was interested.

When she eventually reached home, she found her mother in the drawing-room on the chintz couch.

“I have one of my headaches, Joan. I won’t come into the dining-room to lunch. Send me something in here.”

Cecil was quiet and a little glum at luncheon. She was a girl of many moods. When Joan asked her how she liked the Gascoignes, she said:

“That Banty is simply a great cow! ‘Do you hunt? Like to join our hockey club? S’pose you don’t shoot?’ And when I had said ‘no’ to all these queries, she turned her back on me.”

“She is rather awkward,” said Joan, laughing. “But she is very good-natured. I have met her once or twice striding over the heath with her dogs. She loves Nature, and so do I; so we have that taste in common.”

“Did you notice Major Armitage? He was like a man in a dream while you were playing the voluntary. I know he was longing to do it himself.”

“Armitage,” said Mr. Adair, rousing himself out of a fit of abstraction. “He came to me in the vestry; asked if he might have the key of the organ sometimes. I asked him if he was a good enough musician to warrant my turning over our beautiful little organ to him, but he seemed to think he was.”

“Really, Dad!” protested Joan. “You need not have put it so badly. But I don’t feel inclined to give him my key, for I am so often in the church at odd times. The organ is becoming rather dear to me!”

“My dear, I have a duplicate in the vestry. I gave it to him on the spot. I liked the man, and mean to call on him as soon as I can.”

Cecil brightened up.

“Ask him to dinner, Dad. I like him too, and you know mother’s weakness for soldiers.”

Joan was off again to afternoon school after lunch. Cecil and her mother spent the afternoon by the drawing-room fire. Neither of them attended the evening service, and when Mr. Adair hoped to have a little rest, and quiet talk with his wife after supper, she went up to bed.

It was always the way. For years his wife had eluded his company, though in public she was bright and engaging.

On Monday came an invitation to dine at the Hall. But only one daughter was asked, and Cecil pouted with discontent.

“I’m sure I don’t want to go,” Joan said good-temperedly. “You can take my place, Cecil.”

Mrs. Adair wished to refuse.

“These country people bore me so Sir Joseph’s conversation is only on sport, Lady Gascoigne’s on needlework and servants.”

But her husband wanted her to go, and said so very emphatically. She smiled at his eagerness, but gave way.

“The position of a parson’s wife is pitiful,” she said to the girls when her husband had left the room.

“Then why did you become one?” laughed Cecil.

“I know what you mean,” said Joan sympathetically; “but I think the Gascoignes like people for themselves. They’re too well bred to patronise.”

Later that day Joan crossed the heath with her little terrier Bob; she was going to see a sick person. As her feet trod the dead heather underfoot, and she breathed the fresh keen pine-laden air, her spirits rose. The day had been full of small pinpricks; the daily routine of a quiet household had been upset; the rector and his wife had been having long discussions over ways and means, and accounts generally brought him distress of mind.

At the back of Joan’s thoughts, through everything that was said and done, was, “Shall I be able to leave home?”

She could not see the way out. Every fresh hour convinced her that her place could not and would not be taken by Cecil. She was loth to acknowledge it. Now as she lifted up her head and surveyed the wide expanse above and around her, the words again came to her mind:

   “Strengthened with all might . . . unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.”

“I dare say,” she mused; “that may be the life God has in store for me, not out in the world doing the work which seems big in my short-sighted eyes, but just the humdrum life at home which makes such demands on one’s patience. How glad I am that I can leave it to Him. If He closes the outer gate, I can work within. And I will, oh! I will, if I can, do it joyfully.”

Yet she wiped away some smarting tears as she walked.

Presently she met Banty Gascoigne, who was also alone.

Banty was a fresh-coloured, rather plain young person, and had that slightly roughened and hardened look about her face that comes of being continually out of doors.

“Weatherproof and waterproof,” she called herself. She had fair hair and blue eyes, with rather a wide mouth and square chin. She was always dressed in the severest tailor tweeds, and wore very short skirts.

She waved her stick to Joan as she approached. Though they were not at present very intimate friends, Banty was thoroughly unconventional.

“I do like to meet a walker like myself,” she said; “and you walk as if you liked it.”

“Of course I do,” said Joan; “it takes years off my life when I’m out of doors.”

Banty laughed appreciatively.

“Where are you going? I am ‘de trop’ this afternoon. They had enough guns without me, which was distinctly nasty of them; and mother has a tea-party. I expect you wonder who can be at it, but it is three old cousins who have motored over, and the Irwins from Chesterbrook; and they’re every one of them so Early Victorian that I am a fish out of water; and they’re, of course, shocked and disgusted with me.”

Joan explained her errand.

“Isn’t it a bore to trudge out on such visits?”

Joan shook her head happily.

“You’re a proper parson’s daughter in principles; but you oughtn’t to have that dimple; it gives you a flighty look.”

“I’m so sorry,” Joan said, laughing.

“I’ll walk a bit of the way with you,” announced Banty. “Are you coming to dinner with us?”

“The family is. I dare say Cecil will come instead of me.”

“Oh, no; you were asked, and you must come. Derrick will be furious if you don’t.”

“That won’t distress me,” said Joan, laughing. Then she stood still for a moment, watching a flock of curlews overhead.

“Could you bring one of them down?” said Banty with gleaming eyes. “I could, if I had my gun.”

“I suppose it is the sense of skill in aim that pleases,” said Joan, looking at her thoughtfully; “it can’t be shedding blood.”

“Don’t talk like a Quaker! I thought you were a good sort! Derrick swears you are.”

There was a little silence between the two; then Banty said abruptly:

“I should die of the dumps if I were in your shoes, and yet you look so jolly.”

“What is the matter with my shoes? They fit me well.” Then a quick sigh escaped her. “Don’t try to make me discontented; some people put their feet into the wrong shoes, and then comes disaster. I think, personally, I should like to exchange mine for a bigger pair. But if it’s not to be, it is not.”

“I only meant I couldn’t stand pottering about the village and teaching village children and visiting the sick.”

“Teaching is glorious!” said Joan with sudden enthusiasm. “There is nothing equal to it. Fancy being able to take a hand in moulding or forming a character. That is work that will last for an eternity.”

Banty stared at her. She always dropped a subject which she did not understand, and she did so now.

Then Joan began to talk about the country and dogs and horses. Banty waxed eloquent at once. They talked and walked together, and when Banty eventually turned back and Joan went on her way alone, Banty, for one, determined to pursue the acquaintance already begun.

An hour later Joan was returning in the dusk. As she was passing a rather lonely group of pines her small terrier dashed forward, barking furiously. She saw in the gloom a man’s stooping figure, and as Bob would not obey her call, she stepped over to see what was the matter. She could not recognise the man in the dusk, but his voice was that of a gentleman, and he was extricating his own dog from a gin. There was a clump of gorse and brambles in which one had been set for rabbits.

“Can I help at all?” Joan asked sympathetically. “I do hope he isn’t much hurt.”

“One of his legs, poor little brute. I don’t think it is broken; but he is awfully frightened. These confounded gins ought not to be set in the open.”

“No; it is very wrong. I’m afraid it is some of the village boys.”

Then, seeing the poor little leg was bleeding, she took out her handkerchief.

“Do let me bind him up. I ought to be good at bandages, as I’ve passed all the exams. in ambulance classes that I can.”

“I shall be much obliged. Men are always clumsier than women.”

Together they bent over the small dog, who had been snapping at everybody and everything in his pain, but, once released, was now lying exhausted and panting on the ground.

Joan did not take long to bandage the wounded leg, and then advised his master to bathe it well on reaching home. He thanked her courteously, evidently did not want to accompany her to the village, for he turned off at right angles, the dog in his arms; and Joan knew perfectly well that there was no house in the direction which he took. She smiled to herself.

“I shouldn’t wonder if that was Major Armitage. I wish I could have seen his face.”

When she reached home, she found Derrick making himself very agreeable to Mrs. Adair and Cecil.

“Ah, here you are!” he said, jumping up and bringing a low chair to the fire. “Sit down and give an account of yourself. Your mother and I have been hard on at politics. We don’t agree, of course; but we’ve agreed to differ. I wish I knew as much about our Constitution and its laws as Mrs. Adair does.”

Joan sat down and told them about the stranger and his dog.

“That’s Armitage, right enough,” said Derrick. “Old Jossy asked him to shoot. He came out one day; not a bad shot, but a regular dumb dog. We each had a try at him. He is too cussedly indifferent to us to open his lips, and declines all invitations to meals. What is he making himself into a hermit for, I’d like to know?”

“Artistic temperament,” said Cecil. “You must make allowances. Mother, can’t we call upon him? I want to see his house. I’m quite curious to see it.”

“Your father will call,” Mrs. Adair said.

“I’ll bet you a fiver you won’t get inside his door,” Derrick said, turning to Cecil.

“Done!” said Cecil. “And I’ll do it within this next week!”

“I don’t think you will do anything that a lady ought not to do,” Mrs. Adair said very quietly; and then she took up a book, and the young people chatted on.

Joan began relating her visit to an old woman who had sent a message to her that she wished to see her “very special.”

“”Tis me dyin’ wishes, me dear,’ she said to me when I got there, ‘an’ if your mem’ry b’ain’t bettern mine, you’d best write of it down.’ So, of course, I got pen and ink and prepared to do it in style.

“”Tis short, me dear. Fust and last, me savin’s, in me best chiny teapot, must be spent on me grave, so’s to spite Tom’s nephews, which be chucklin’ over me departure. An’ me monyment must be a tasty bit o’ stone what will attrac’ the toury folk. ‘Twill be comfortin’ to think on ’em hangin’ over me wi’ admirin’ eyes; not to mention bein’ the envy o’ that stuck-up Lizzie White, who did have a wooden cross with two doves, and went an’ whitewashed it ev’ry Sat’dy; an’ all for a drinkin’ rascal who oughter be lyin’ lowest of the low!’ I tried to get her into a better state of mind before I left.”

“I don’t doubt that,” said Derrick, joining in Cecil’s clear laugh; “but I reckon you failed.”

“I’m afraid I did.”

Joan’s laughing face grew grave.

“What must it feel like to lie on a bed waiting for death?”

“For mercy’s sake, Joan, don’t be so gruesome,” said Cecil; “and don’t talk any more about your old women; we get so sick of them.”

“You’re both to come to dinner on Thursday,” announced Derrick, looking at Joan very straightly. “Old Jossy has too many men, and I’ve come to get another lady.”

“Lady Gascoigne has written to me,” said Cecil. “I wrote a refusal first, and then I tore it up. I want to see this Wilmot Gascoigne. Are he and Banty going to make a match of it?”

“Surely never!” ejaculated Derrick. “Why, Banty wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs; and he doesn’t know she’s in the universe. He’s in the clouds all his days. He reeks of fusty musty books and parchment, and is a walking encyclopædia of the Gascoigne ancestors. Their present descendants he regards as clods of earth. The only word he’s spoken to me was when he was watching us depart after the hunt breakfast last week. He had been listening to Banty’s conversation with one of her hunting pals. I can’t say she shone on that occasion; she never does in conversation.

“‘Great Scott!’ he ejaculated. ‘And is that a specimen of a civilised and educated woman? She’s a brainless savage, and is living seventeen or eighteen centuries too late!'”

“What a nasty little man!” said Cecil.

“His inches are not few, let me tell you. He tops me by a good many.”

“He doesn’t sound pleasant,” said Joan. “Banty is his own cousin, and her parents are giving him a home.”

“He thinks no small beer of himself, I can tell you.”

“I will reduce him, if I get a chance,” said Cecil, nodding her head determinedly.

The talk went on till Derrick took his departure. Joan went off to her father’s study to discuss parish matters, and Cecil turned to her mother a little plaintively.

“Derrick seems to think Joan is overworked and I am a lazy malingerer.”

“Is Derrick’s opinion of any value to you?”

Mrs. Adair shut up her book and looked down upon her daughter with smiling tolerance.

“I value everybody’s liking,” said Cecil thoughtfully.

“I think you are rather lazy,” her mother said. “I wish you would interest yourself more in the topics of the day. There is so much to read and learn of what is taking place. We are all a part of our Empire’s history, and ought to have knowledge of the different currents that form and make it.”

“Oh, Mother, don’t be prosy,” said Cecil, a little impatiently. “I dare say Banty and I are in the same category, only sport is her life, and pleasure—society—is mine. I know I shall get hipped before long. I can’t think why father and Joan are so enchanted to live here. It is an awful little hole. I can’t breathe, and the grey cold is appalling!”

“Are you not feeling well?”

“I never feel fit in England. I hate the winters, and this poky little village is worse than living in a town. Of course, the house is better. It seems to me that even Joan is getting cramped in her ideas. She can talk of nothing but the village.”

“It is a small life—a country parson’s,” her mother admitted; “but you should occupy yourself with books.”

Cecil gave a little impatient sigh.

“Joan is the good daughter and I’m the wicked one,” she said; “and father’s happiness and content in his small sphere makes me feel impatient with him.”

Her mother made no reply. Cecil often voiced her own discontent.

CHAPTER V

RENUNCIATION

THE dinner at the Hall went off very well. Cecil was quite happy, seated between Derrick and a young soldier, Captain Harry Clavering, who took her in. Joan’s lot was Wilmot Gascoigne. He was a tall, intellectual-looking man, with dreamy eyes and a slight sarcastic curl to his lips. But when he talked and smiled he was an attractive personality. He certainly did not appear to despise women’s society, for he turned to Joan at once.

“You are our organist, are you not? I have never had the chance before of coming to near quarters with you, but I study your profile in church.”

“How dreadful!” laughed Joan. “I hope you are not a physiognomist?”

“No,” he said audaciously; “but you are good to look at, and too feminine in appearance to be a college student. I hear you were at Girton?”

“Yes. I wonder why men always imagine that the cultivation of the intellect alters the sex of a woman?”

“Please don’t let us discuss any sex questions. They are so stale nowadays.”

Joan would not be snubbed; but he suddenly plunged into the subject of architecture as seen in the university colleges, and Joan, who was devoted to that subject, forgot everything else. From the delicate fan tracery in King’s Chapel, Cambridge, they wandered off to continental cathedrals, and Joan held her breath as she listened, entranced by his clever and rapid talk. Then he came back to literature, and here Joan could hold her ground. She and he were so absorbed in discussing Horace Walpole’s letters, as compared with Pope’s, that their dinner was forgotten. Joan could not say afterwards which courses she had taken and which she had left. She only felt profound regret when the ladies left the table. In the drawing-room Banty stalked up to her.

“What on earth was Motty saying to you? He hasn’t been so lively since he’s been with us.”

“Oh, I think he is so interesting,” said Joan. “I envy you having him in the house. He must be a mine of knowledge. I should be always digging some of it out of him.”

“Why, he doesn’t know a hen from a pheasant!” gasped Banty. “And would as soon ride a cart horse as a hunter. He’s simply impossible!”

When the gentlemen came in, Joan was taken possession of by Derrick.

“No,” he said; “don’t you cast sheep’s eyes at old Motty. I’ve introduced him to your mother, and they’ll go ahead like a house afire. I was ashamed to look at you at dinner. You were hanging on his words like a fish on a hook. Just hang on mine like it, will you? It’s extraordinary what a gift of the gab will do.”

“You are so very mediocre,” said Joan, smiling, and showing her dimple. “I never feel with you that I can improve my opportunity. I learn nothing by being in your society.”

“That is because you’re so book-proud. Don’t tell me you learnt anything from Motty. He loves to pose as a literary swell; but I know he reads up for conversation like mad. Because he impresses a certain small, stodgy set in town, and fails to impress us, he thinks he isn’t appreciated down here; and he’d discourse with pleasure to an open-mouthed goose if he thought that goose admired him.”

“Do you insinuate—”

“I never insinuate. I hated to see his self-satisfied smirk and your animated and fervent homage to his intellect.”

“How I wish you would grow up,” said Joan.

“I’ve heard that remark before. Aren’t we all a scratch lot to-night?”

He nodded towards a little circle round the fire, which contained Banty and her father.

“That’s our hunting set,” he said. “Cecil is trying to do the smart town set. She has two of the most go-ahead chaps talking to her now. Lady Gascoigne and those three dowagers are gossiping over that poor chap who is shutting himself away from his kind. ‘So wrong of him,’ I heard one of them say. She and her daughters run to earth every fresh bachelor. Your mother and Motty are the literary clique.”

“And what are we?” asked Joan. “I don’t think our conversation is very uplifting at present.”

“Don’t interrupt me. Your father and the Miss Grays and those two parsons represent the clerical section; and you and I, Joan, we are just chums.”

His glance down at her had something more than affection in it.

Joan would not notice it, and she moved over to Lady Gascoigne, deliberately avoiding Derrick for the rest of the evening.

Mrs. Adair returned home with a great liking for Wilmot Gascoigne.

“The first intelligent man I have met for a long time,” she said. “I suppose it sounds conceited of me to say so, but these country squires are, as a rule, very slow-witted, and the clergy have minds as narrow as their stipends.”

“My dear Cecilia,” said her husband good-temperedly, “you are very severe on the poor clergy, but I am glad you enjoyed yourself. I thought you would. These social gatherings are very pleasant.”

“I couldn’t get any innings with Motty, as they call him,” said Cecil. “But I suppose he will find his way round here, if you like him, Mother.”

Joan said nothing. She felt that she would see little more of Wilmot whilst her mother was interested in him. Mrs. Adair was a very fascinating woman, and she knew it.

Joan received a letter the next morning which sent her about her household duties with an absent mind and clouded brow. It was to remind her that there were other applicants waiting for the post which had been offered her, and that she must delay no longer in sending her reply.

At luncheon the rector said in his genial way:

“Cecilia, my dear, I want to have a small parish gathering soon—a kind of house warming. I want my parishioners to know you; there are farmers’ wives scattered over the heath, and many who used to know us in the old days. It would be nice to gather them together and make them feel that we are their friends. Joan suggests Christmas, but that is a long way off. What do you think about it? And do you think you could manage to say a few words to them? You are so clever at expressing yourself that I am sure you would not find it difficult. It would please me very much if you would.”

Mrs. Adair slowly shook her head.

“No, John, I have never interfered with your province, and I have some visits I must make to some of my own people. My brother in Edinburgh has asked me to take Cecil there for a few weeks. It is a long time since I have seen him, so I should like to go.”

“It is an expensive journey,” said Mr. Adair in disconsolate tones; “but we must postpone our gathering till you come back.”

“Pray don’t think of such a thing. Joan and you are quite equal to entertaining them. You know how I loathe parish functions of any sort!”

There was a little silence. The rector was bitterly disappointed that his wife was thinking of leaving him again so soon. In a few moments he said:

“I hoped, my dear, after your long sojourn abroad you were going to settle down quietly here for the winter.”

“I am never going to give up seeing my own people.”

Mrs. Adair’s tone was proud and cold.

The rector heaved a sigh.

“Well, well, a few weeks will soon pass; and we shall have you back again.”

Then Joan spoke, though she knew it was an unpropitious moment.

“I am wondering if I must decline this post of teaching that has been offered me. I told you about it, Mother. It is a chance that may never come to me again.”

“Your father and you must settle that together,” said Mrs. Adair; “if he can spare you, I have no objection to offer.”

“He must have one of us here,” said Joan slowly.

Cecil looked up laughing.

“My dear Joan, there is tragedy in your tone. Be thankful that your duties keep you here, instead of going out to earn your bread. You know quite well that you are the only one of us that is cut out for parish work. I should make a pretty hash of it if tried to step into your shoes!”

“Such a possibility is not to be considered,” her mother said quickly and a little sharply. “You have not the health to do it.”

Joan pushed back her chair and left the room abruptly. Her soul was turbulent and rebellious. She went up to her little whitewashed room, and sinking on her knees laid her hot head on the broad window ledge.

“Oh, God! It is hard. Am I cut out for parish work? Has not my training been for a wider sphere? Why should my talents be buried? An open door before me, with a vista of influence and power, and—and success. Yes, I know I could fill it. I know it is in me to mould, and organise, and rule, and yet I must shut this door and turn my back on it. And Cecil is doing nothing, absolutely nothing with her life. It would give her a new lease of life if she left her health alone and thought of others more. Oh, it is hard! It is unfair! I feel inclined to break away from it all!”

Hot tears rose to her eyes. She clenched her hands convulsively. Though she had known instinctively she could not leave home, she had hoped against hope that her circumstances might change. She could not bring herself to write the necessary refusal, and knelt there battling with her lifelong desires, and the duty that was crushing them into dust.

But in about half an hour’s time her brow smoothed, and the light returned to her eyes. If joy was at present in abeyance, resignation and content had become the victor.

“I will be strong in patience, that is as far as I can see at present.” Then a twinkle shot into her eye. “Perhaps if I can’t teach and rule on this earth, I may do it in the Millennium!”

She got out her writing-case and wrote her letter in a firm hand. After she had sealed it, she sat looking out of her window.

“A great renunciation,” she said to herself; “and yet nobody will believe it. Cecil laughs at the notion. But I have not done it very willingly. Now I must look forward, and never back at it. That phase in my life is over. Thank God, I can still impart knowledge, though of a different kind, to my small Sunday scholars. And I dare say from above it looks the highest class after all. What a lovely afternoon! I will go and get the apples in.”

She ran lightly downstairs, and sang her way down the garden into the orchard. Cecil heard her. She was in an easy chair before the drawing-room fire, a novel in her hand.

“What a happy creature Joan is,” she said to her mother, who as usual was at her writing-desk. “She is like father, easily satisfied in her small surroundings.”

Mrs. Adair looked thoughtfully out into the garden. “I never have understood Joan,” she said, more to herself than to Cecil, “but the present weighs more than the future in her calculations. Her apples at this moment are the most important things in the world.”

When Joan and the odd man had finished their task, she came into the house to find that Cecil had gone out, and her mother was lying down in her room. The drawing-room fire was out; she ran into the kitchen and sent Jenny in to relight it. Then Sophia, who was plucking a chicken, detained her.

“Sit you down, Miss Joan, I want a word with ye. There’s no getting a bit of talk with you these days.”

Joan dropped into a rocking chair by the fire.

“I would like to sit here for an hour, Sophia. You have the knack of making the kitchen the pleasantest place in the world. When I marry—if ever I do—I shall live in my kitchen.”

“Stuff! We’ll wish you a grand match, Miss Joan; may you be one of they who gives orders only and has the staff to carry ’em out. Do ye know where Miss Cecil be off to?”

“No; where?”

“She have taken a note from me to Maria. Aye, she would have it, she be just wild to get into that house, so she tells me, and, Miss Joan, ’tis no house for a lady, and what is more, no lady is to cross the threshold.”

“You sound very mysterious. What has Maria been telling you?”

“A good deal not to be repeated. But I’ll tell you this, Miss Joan, Major Armitage be wrong in his head. There be no doubt of that.”

“Why do you think so?”

“You’ll keep a still tongue over it? I wouldn’t let the mistress hear it nor yet Miss Cecil. He be quite unkenny as the Scotch say. You must know Maria do a lot of waitin’ on him at times. She says at a certain hour every afternoon in the gloaming—from six to seven—he sits in his big room, the music-room he calls it, because of the big pianny, but Maria calls it the library, for the walls be pretty well covered with books. He takes a big chair by the fire, and he pulls another, a soft ladyish cushioned one, which no one never sits on, opposite him, then he smokes his pipe and he talks in a low tone which makes your blood curdle, not all at once on end, Maria says, but just a word here an’ there, and a soft tender like whisper at times.”

Joan laughed at Sophia’s awed face.

“Why, lots of lonely people talk to themselves; I do very often when I’m out walking.”

“Miss Joan, ’tis this way, and Maria says it as knows, he be talkin’ to someone not to be seen, ‘a-sittin’ in that chair!'”

“Good gracious! What do you mean?”

“Well, I be charitable and say the poor man be not right in his head. There be people who might say he were temperin’ and playin’ with spirits. Maria come in one evenin’, and he never heard her, and he leant across to the chair, and he says quite distinct, ‘Will you listen, sweet, and tell me how you like it?’ And then he walks to the pianny and he plays, Maria said, like an angel. And once he looks back over his shoulder at the chair and smiles, such a smile as a man gives the one he dotes on.”

Joan began to look interested.

“Go on, Sophia, tell me more. But I don’t think Maria ought to spy on him.”

“‘Twas by accident, but he have given orders that nobody disturbs him from six to seven every night. And there be other things, Miss Joan. He have told Maria that any gentlemen who call on him must be shown into the smokin’-room, but no lady on any pretence whatever is to put her foot over the threshold of the big front door. And he goes up to the little boudoir which he keeps the key of himself, and he puts fresh flowers every two or three days in it. But Maria dursn’t ask a question. Maybe the lady be dead, and he be keepin’ communion with her spirit, but ’tis a heathenish thing, and I think his poor mind be disturbed.”

Joan did not answer.

“So, Miss Joan,” pursued Sophia, “I want you to keep Miss Cecil out of his way, and you know what she always was like when a body wanted her to do or not to do, so determined to do contrariwise. The less a young lady has to do with such a man the better. Not but what Maria says he be kind and considerate and sensible in all other ways. And he be lookin’ into his estate in the right sort of way, and talkin’ friendly with the tenants. But he must have a kink in his brain, or be in league with spirits.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me, Sophia. Maria ought not to have spied upon him. His private life has nothing to do with us. You won’t let this gossip get about the village?”

“Now what do you take me for? Don’t I know that you’re a safe person to tell things to? But Miss Cecil may get in at the back door—she certainly won’t get in at the front.”

Joan got up from the chair on which she had been sitting.

“I dare say Major Armitage is a child at heart, and was making believe as I used to do! I won’t believe anything ‘unkenny’ about him, Sophia.”

She met Cecil a little later coming in from the garden.

“I’ve bearded the hermit in his den!” she cried out gaily. “I told Derrick I would. I’ve been chatting in his kitchen, to Maria, who seems gloomy and mysterious. The Major was out, but I met him walking up the drive as I was coming away.

“‘I haven’t been to call upon you,’ I said to him, ‘but to take a message to your cook. Don’t you remember me?’

“Fancy, he had the impertinence to say that he did not! I reminded him of the hotel abroad. He looked bored, lifted his hat and walked on. I have never been so snubbed in my life.”

“I wish you hadn’t gone,” said Joan. “It puts you in a false position.”

“Oh, don’t be so conventional! He wants to be taken out of himself.”

Then she sank down on a chair in the hall.

“I’m tired to death. I hate the country, Joan! I haven’t met a single soul on the way there or back.”

Joan stood still and looked at her with a little impatience and some tenderness in her eyes.

“I wonder,” she said slowly, “what work you were meant to do when you were sent into the world?”

Cecil gazed at her in silence for a moment, then said:

“You do say such prosy things. Work! Everybody is not made for work. I am sure I wasn’t. This life in a parsonage is nothing but work! You are just a slave of the village, Joan.”

“It’s happy slavery, then,” said Joan, laughing, “for I’m getting to love them all, and, when you love, slavery isn’t in it.”

Cecil would vouchsafe no reply. She dragged herself up from her chair and went into the drawing-room to her mother.

Joan turned into her father’s study. There was a good deal of parish work to be discussed between them. She found him now with his head in his hands, and his elbows on his writing-table, doing nothing. It was such an unusual position for him that she wondered.

“Are you asleep, Dad, dear?”

Mr. Adair turned heavy eyes and anxious brow at the sound of her voice; then his face cleared.

“Not asleep. I wish I were,” he said, trying to speak lightly. “I am only thinking about ways and means, Joan. My pass book is not a pleasant sight.”

Joan knelt down by his side and her tone was almost motherly.

“Don’t worry. We shall be better off soon. You have had such heavy expenses coming here. We shall not have those again.”

He did not answer; then a heavy sigh escaped him. “Your mother means to go abroad again in January. She told me so this morning.”

This was the cause of his depression. Joan could hardly trust herself to speak.

“Perhaps she will change her mind before the time comes. We won’t live in the future, Dad, dear. Leave January to take care of itself.”

“I suppose you couldn’t have a talk with her, Joan? Women understand each other. I always seem to bungle. I really don’t know how we can afford it. I simply shall not have the money to send her this year. I withdrew almost the last of my private capital last year. I have been doing it for years, but that has come to an end, and if anything happened to me, I should leave you utterly unprovided for. Your mother’s money could not support you. It is not nearly enough for herself and for Cecil.”

“But I think and hope I could support myself,” said Joan gently. “Don’t bother over that. We will hope that you will be spared to us for many a long day yet.”

Then she added in a different tone:

“I will try to have a talk with Mother again about it.” She pressed a light kiss on his forehead, then persisted in talking to him about some of his parishioners, and for the time Mr. Adair laid his private trouble aside. Yet when she was about to leave him, he called her back.

“I hoped, Joan, my dear, I thought we had such a pretty, comfortable home now—I am sure you have taken such pains in making it fresh and home-like, I did think it would have been an inducement to your mother to settle down here. And there are such nice friendly people round. I have been wondering if we could not find some people who might take Cecil abroad at a slight expense—I have heard of it being done—if she would make herself useful to them, I mean, and then your mother would not be obliged to go. She could stay at home with us.”

Joan almost smiled.

“No, Dad, dear; Mother will never let Cecil leave her wing. I will talk over things with her. But Mother is not dependent on house comfort. She has so many other things in her life.”

“I thought a nice, pretty home would satisfy any woman,” said Mr. Adair, sighing; “I told your mother so.”

Joan tried to imagine her mother’s feelings at hearing that sentiment. But she had an overwhelming pity for her simple, kindly old father, and when she left him, it was with tears rising in her eyes.