in love till she has had good reason given her. It is not
nice; it is not womanly."

And as day by day passed, and night after night, when she leaned against
the casement of her window, when the stars were throbbing and shining in
the deep-blue of the winter's sky, she had to confess, with deep
abasement of spirit, that she had been as weak as poor Charlotte, nay,
weaker; for as Charlotte's heroes fell from their pedestals, or vanished
into thin air like the mirage in the desert, she could always replace
them, and pour forth her romantic soul in verses addressed to new
objects, as if the old had never existed.

But Joyce told herself she must suffer the consequences of her weakness
for ever and a day. No one could ever again be to her what Gilbert had
been, in that first happy time of awakening love.

Joyce's pale cheeks and wistful eyes at last attracted her mother's
notice. In these days she would have been taken to see a doctor, ordered
change of air and scene, and put upon some _regime_ as to food. But,
except in cases of severe illness, people did not resort to doctors as
they do now-a-days, and the nervous patients and chronic invalids,
resigned themselves to unlimited home physic, and took their poor health
as a matter of course.

"Joyce," Mrs. Falconer said, one day, early in February, when the season
of Christmas they had all dreaded so much was past; "Joyce, I think it
would do you good to spend a few days with Aunt Letitia at Wells."

Joyce tried to smile.

"I don't want to be done good to, mother; besides, I can't leave you."

"Yes, you can. Mr. Paget said yesterday you looked as if you wanted a
change. It's a wonder Mrs. More has not asked you to Barley Wood again."

"She has been so ill," Joyce said; "it is not likely she could invite
me."

"And then there is Mrs. Arundel and her niece that came here last fall;
not a word have we heard of them."

"Yes, mother; you forget. I have heard twice, about--about Lord
Maythorne. Mrs. Arundel has kept him from coming here again. Besides,
she is busy settling into a home, and besides----"

"I think it is very odd, Mr. Arundel has never written, or come here
again."

"He wrote to me once," Joyce said, in a low voice.

"Did you answer the letter?"

"No, mother," Joyce said, springing up quickly, and, with a great
effort, throwing off her sadness. "No; there was nothing to answer. But
I _will_ go and stay a day or two with Aunt Letitia, if you want to g