uraging enough. She had taken little or no notice of Susan's
presence in the kitchen and dairy till she began to come forth from her
seclusion. Then, indeed, poor Susan had a hard time of it; but love, and
gratitude to Joyce, were too strong for her to show any resentment for
the many unjust suspicions and sharp reproofs which she had to bear.

"It's only what I must look for, Miss Joyce," she said one day, when the
breaking of a plate, which she had never touched, was at once laid to
her charge. "It's only what I must look for. My dear mother always used
to say, when poor father beat and ill-used her, that she remembered some
words of St. Peter, that if you were buffeted for doing _well_, that is,
doing your best, and took it patiently, it was acceptable in God's
sight. Besides, Miss Joyce, I have been used to hard words, and I know
how brokenhearted the poor mistress is; why, she is even a bit cross to
Master Piers and you, which is more than I can understand, for you are
next door to an angel, Miss Joyce."

"No, Susan I don't feel at all angelic. That is a mistake. I feel angry
and discontented sometimes, if I don't show it. There are so many
troubles which can't be talked of."

"Yes, miss, I know that well enough; but you can tell them to God, and
that's a rare comfort. Dozens of times in the day I tell Him of my
biggest trouble, that I have a father who----"

Susan stopped, threw her coarse apron over her head, and ran away to
scour the pans in the dairy till they shone like silver.

The bright November weather soon vanished, and the winter closed in
rapidly. Except for a visit of a few days from Miss Falconer and
Charlotte, nothing occurred to break the monotony of this dead time of
the year. Farming and gardening operations were suspended, and Ralph got
out his beloved books again, and Piers arranged and re-arranged his
large collection of curiosities, and Christmas drew near.

Joyce had given up listening for a footstep on the road, or looking
anxiously for the old postman, who trudged from Wells, on fine days,
with the letters, but in bad weather pleased himself as to the length of
his rounds.

Mrs. Falconer worked, and knitted, and darned, and, when the wind blew
fiercely round the house on the dark winter nights, thought of her
little Middies tossing about on the wide sea; and of Melville in that
far-off land, which she knew more by its shape of a boot on the map
Piers had hung up in his room, than by