ul. Yet, in truth, I did confess at length.'

'True,' answered her mother, 'and therefore thou art forgiven, and
without a punishment; only remember thy name and take better heed of
thy Pure Faith another time. What made thee come and tell me even
now?'

'The sight of the broken spear in church,' stammered the little girl.
'That began it, and then I partly remembered....'

She got no further. Even to her indulgent mother (and Madam Purefoy
was accounted an unwontedly tender parent in those days), Joyce could
not explain how it was, that, as the glance from those grave boyish
eyes fell upon her, out of the sunlit window, her 'disremembering'
became suddenly a weight too heavy to be borne.

Jocosa Purefoy never forgot that Sunday, or her childish fault.

* * * * *

The visits of the Squire and his family to the old Manor House were
few and far between. The estates in Yorkshire that Madam Purefoy had
brought to her husband on her marriage were the children's real home.
It was several years after this before Cecily saw her fairy princess
again. The next glimpse was even more fleeting than their appearance
in church, just a mere flash at the lodge gates as Jocosa and her
brother cantered past on their way out for a day's hunting. Old
Thomas, sitting in his arm-chair in the sun, looked critically and
enviously at the man-servant who accompanied them. 'Too young--too
young,' he muttered. His own hunting days were long past, but he could
not bear, even crippled with rheumatism as he was, that any one but
he, who had taught their father to sit a horse, should ride to hounds
with his children.

Cecily had some envious thoughts too. 'I should like very well to wear
a scarlet riding-dress and fur tippet, and a long red feather in my
hat, and go a-hunting on old Snowball, instead of having to stop at
home and take care of grandfather and mind the house.'

After she had closed the heavy iron gates with a clang, she pressed
her nose between the bars and looked wistfully along the straight
road, carried on its high causeway above the fens, down which the gay
riders were swiftly disappearing.

But, in spite of envious looks, the gaiety of the day was short-lived.
During the very first run, Snowball put her foot into a rabbit-hole,
and almost came down. 'Lamed herself, sure enough,' said the
man-servant grimly. No more hunting for Snowball that day. The best
that could be hoped was that she might