very much for
anything, that is the worst of it. She always talks of her day being
over, and that she has nothing now to live for; but she has, all the
same," Piers continued, laughing. "She bustles about every morning,
rubbing and dusting, and then she is knitting socks enough to last
Falcon till he is twenty, and all kinds of things for your baby."

"Does she get on with the servants now?"

"Oh! pretty well. Of course, there is a good scold every day of one or
the other of them, but both the maids know by this time, as we all do,
that mother's bark may be sharp, but her bite is nothing."

"I hope you are not very dull, darling Piers?" Joyce asked.

"Dull! No, thank goodness! I don't know what dullness means. I see you
have brought Charlotte with you; she is as languishing as ever."

"Poor Charlotte!" Joyce said; "she, at any rate, knows very well what
dullness means. But I must not stay; remember you and mother are to
spend Christmas with us in Great George Street."

The Clifton of fifty-five year's ago might not present such an
appearance of gaiety on a fine afternoon as it does now; but,
nevertheless, the Downs and Observatory were sprinkled with people, well
dressed, in carriages, or Bath chairs, or on foot.

It was decided that the carriage should be ordered by Joyce from the
stables at the back of Sion Hill, as she went to Windsor Terrace; that
Mrs. Falconer, Piers, and Charlotte should drive to the turnpike on the
Down, and then come to the top of Granby Hill, and wait there for Joyce.
Charlotte was quite content with this arrangement, and watched Joyce's
departure after dinner with some satisfaction. She rather liked to be
alone with Mrs. Falconer, who, as she knitted, listened to her little
complaints with patience, if not with expressed sympathy. Mrs. Arundel,
on the contrary, thought Charlotte needed rousing, and was intolerant of
perpetual headaches and low spirits.

There were many unoccupied young women like Charlotte, fifty years ago,
without any particular aim in life, except a vague idea that they ought
to be married. The years as they passed, often went by on leaden wings.
Charlotte was amiable and gentle; and Miss Falconer, disappointed with
the result of her training, would say: "Poor dear Charlotte has not
strong health; so different from Joyce, who was a perfect rustic in
that, as in other things." But Joyce was married, and Charlotte remained
single, and had not even the satisfaction of