Well, the result is in God's hands; we must pray and labour for peace,
that blessed gift of God's love--peace."

It was a sweet parting word, and one to which Joyce often recurred in
later years, almost as Hannah More's legacy to her--Peace.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV.

THE STORM BURSTS.

It was the evening of the eighteenth of October when Joyce was seated in
her nursery, awaiting her husband's return. The Bristol clocks had
struck eleven; and from time to time the noise of the voices of many
people reached her, borne upon the still night air. She had sent the
servants to bed; and Mrs. Arundel and Charlotte were also gone to their
rooms; but Joyce sat up watching for Gilbert's return.

The baby Joy, was sleeping in her cradle, and Lettice and Lota in their
cribs, while Falcon lay in profound repose, a fife, upon which he had
been playing hard all day, as he marched round and round the garden, was
clasped in his strong, round little fingers.

Joyce bent over the children, shading the candle with her hand, to
assure herself they slept, and then, leaving the nursery door open, that
she might hear if they stirred or cried, she went gently down the wide
staircase to the hall. The fire in the dining-room was burning low, and
she put on some more coal, and saw that the kettle just simmered on the
hob, ready to be put on to the fire when Gilbert came.

She moved with that quiet, almost stealthy tread, which is common with
those who feel themselves the only persons awake in a house.

The stillness was broken by the ticking of the clock in the hall, and
how loud that tick sounded!

Joyce went to the window, and, unfastening the shutter, looked out into
the night, a dark, murky night; and from below came the low murmur of
the crowds, which had not yet dispersed.

Public feeling throughout the country had reached almost to fever heat,
but in Bristol the animosity against Bishops and Lords, for the
rejection of the Reform Bill which the Commons had passed, was quickened
by the personal hatred, which the recorder, Sir Charles Wetherall had
excited amongst the people.

Bristol reformers were enraged that he should have made a bitter attack
upon Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, charging him most
unfairly with encouraging illegal means for carrying the Reform Bill.
Though the whole country was in a ferment, and riots had broken out in
Derby, Nottingham, and other towns, in no place was there such a
pe