sheet of Bath
post, which was folded over.

"My mother is likely to visit the Palace, at Wells, in November. I
have charged her, if possible, to see you at Fair Acres. I have
heard nothing from your brother, but I am well satisfied that he is
out of England, for reasons which you know.--G. DeC. A."

The reserved style of this letter, so different from the random shots of
the present day, when young men and maidens seem to think the form of a
telegram the most appropriate way of expressing their thoughts, may
provoke a smile, and be pronounced priggish and formal. But in Joyce's
eyes it was a perfect letter, and she felt it to be a support and
comfort to her in her loneliness. Words which come from the heart seldom
miss their aim; and Joyce felt that, underlying those carefully written
lines, there was the certainty that if her promise to him was
fulfilled, and that she thought, even in her sorrow, of him continually,
_he_, on his part, did not forget her.

In the simplicity of her young heart, she had never dreamed that Gilbert
could really care for her, and his long silence had made her think of
him only as of someone who had passed out of her life, and was to be in
future but a memory. Now the fluttering hope became almost a certainty,
and she repeated to herself many times that evening, as a bird repeats
its song over and over with the same rapture of content--

"I bear you ever in my mind, and the time may come, _will_ come, when I
will beg you to hear more from me than I dare to say now, and grant me a
very earnest petition."

"The time _will_ come--the time _will_ come, and, meanwhile, I can
wait," she thought. "Yes, the time will come, and I can wait."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER X.

THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

There are exceptions to every rule, and this applies to cities as well
as to individuals. The meek man may be excited to fierce anger, the
quietest and most undemonstrative, may suddenly be moved to enthusiasm.
So with Wells, that little city of peace, under the Mendips; had anyone
visited it for the first time on the fifth of November, in the year of
grace eighteen hundred and twenty-four, they must have been struck by
the uproar and confusion which reigned in the usually quiet streets.

Although Mrs. Arundel had been warned by her courteous host, the Bishop,
not to be alarmed if the sound of a tumultuous crowd should even reach
the seclusion of the palace itself, neither