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

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

Charlotte sighed. "If I did _not_ live here it would be all the same."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was pa.s.sing out, wrapt in her own meditations when Gilbert Arundel put out his hand:

"Joyce!"

She started, and blushed rosy red.

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

"Forget you, no."

"You did not reply to my letter?"

"You did not ask me to write."

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: Clock at Wells]

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

Joyce said.

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

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

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

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

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

Joyce turned away her head, and did not answer.

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

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

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

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

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

Presently he reappeared.

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

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

"My dear young friend, welcome for your _mother's_ sake, always welcome, and for your own. How could you doubt it? Why stand on ceremony? But we are in some distress," he said, with a sly twinkle in his eye; "we have lost a young lady: she vanished into thin air as we left the cathedral.

Perhaps some knight-errant has carried her off. Ah! I see you know something about her. Well, sit down; and, Barker," to one of the servants, "Miss Falconer's place next Mr. Arundel's."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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