young gentleman
in clerical dress, who was as much like his father as youth can resemble
age, "my son is also anxious to pay his respects. My wife, Mrs. Law, is
yet absent on account of her health, but returns to the palace next
week."

Both the Bishop and his son were courtly gentlemen of what we call now
"the old school," and they had peculiarly clear and sonorous voices; the
old man's set in rather a lower key than his son's.

"Pray, my lord," Mrs. Falconer said, "walk in, and I beg you to excuse a
desolate sitting room," opening a door to the right of the hall; "I have
never had courage to sit here since--since our trouble. Joyce draw up
the blinds and set the chairs." Mrs. Falconer said this, with something
of her old quickness.

"Our little parlour would be warmer, mother; this room feels cold,"
Joyce said, in a low tone, as she obeyed her mother, and noticed the
cold, damp, unused atmosphere, which always clings to a room that has
been closed for some time.

That room, with its three windows set in thick frames, with deep
window-seats beneath, had been Mrs. Falconer's pride. As she looked
round now, the furniture seemed dull, and the whole aspect of things
changed.

"Yes," she said, sadly, "yes, you are right, Joyce; this room is not fit
to sit down in; we will go to our own sitting room, if his lordship will
follow me."

The whole party adjourned there, and Piers, with unusual forethought,
had already ordered a tray to be brought in; for it was always _en
regle_ in country houses in those days to offer refreshment of wine and
cake, as calls were paid early, just as afternoon tea is brought in now
for visitors later in the day.

Mrs. Arundel left the Bishop to talk to Mrs. Falconer, and Gratian won
Piers' heart by professing the deepest interest in his drawer full of
birds' eggs, which happened to be opened. That was one of Gratian's
strongest weapons; she took, or appeared to take, an interest in
everybody's particular hobby, and yet she was listening with one ear to
every word that passed between Mrs. Arundel and Joyce. Poor Piers was
quite unconscious that he had not her whole attention. When Mr. Law
joined the discussion she withdrew and said to Joyce, "I should like to
see the grounds, would you show me round." Piers wondered at her abrupt
departure from the contemplation of the wren's eggs, and his animated
story of the way the little wrens huddle together in a nest in the
winter, under ground, i