ee with Mr. Arundel," shouted
Bunny in his ringing, boyish treble. "They have been there two hours."

Bunny was in advance of the other boys and their guest; and it was Piers
who said: "You need not shout as if you were the town-crier!" While
Melville dragged himself out of the depths of a large sofa covered with
horse-hair, where he had been sleeping off the effects of his large
dinner and repeated glasses of ale and wine, and said the boys' voices
were a perfect nuisance, and he did not know what Arundel thought of
such a hubbub.

A laugh from the person in question, as he passed the open window with
Ralph, seemed to point to the fact that Gilbert had as light a heart as
any of the young brothers at whom Melville so often took offence.

Family prayers were the exception in many households in these days; but
as there was only one service in the church on Sundays, the squire,
following his father's custom before him, always assembled the household
in the evening, and read a chapter from the old family Bible, and a
short dry sermon with a prayer from an old book, in which was written
his mother's name. It might be questioned whether the rosy-cheeked
maiden and the stalwart young men from the Farm, who sat with their
hands one on each knee, staring at Melville and the visitor, as strange
specimens of humanity, could understand a word of the sermon or follow
the prayer.

Perhaps Joyce scarcely realised how dry and formal this service was, and
yet this evening a new spirit seemed to be stirring within her, an
aspiration for something, she hardly knew what, but something which was
not outside of her, but touched her inmost heart.

Her mood was subdued and quiet during the rest of the evening, and when
she knocked at Piers' door to be admitted, as was her invariable custom,
to make his room tidy, and place his crutches near the bed, the boy
said:

"Do you like Mr. Arundel, Joyce?"

"Yes, dear; I think I like him very much."

Piers was silent.

"The next thing will be that you like him better than me."

"Nonsense, Piers; is that likely?"

Joyce had finished her labours in the little room now, and had seated
herself in the window-seat looking out into the grounds.

The moon, nearly at the full, was lifting her round, white face above
the low-lying range of hills eastward while the colour of the sunset sky
still lingered in the west.

The window was open, and from below Joyce heard the sound of her
father's voic