flatter everybody," Joyce said, "as years ago poor
Melville found to his cost. So take care, Charlotte."

"Take care, indeed! I don't know what you mean," said Charlotte,
pouting. "You always think no one can possibly admire _me_."

"My dear Charlotte, this is not a time for such nonsense, it is time to
commend ourselves and all we love to God's care, and not to be filled
with thoughts of who admires us and who does not. Lord Maythorne is
Gilbert's uncle; but he has caused a great deal of sorrow in the family,
and we were all very sorry when he came to live in England again. Mrs.
Arundel cannot be uncivil to him, but she has not the slightest respect
for him; neither have I."

"Well, dear," said Charlotte, "now you have finished your lecture, I
will go downstairs. I suppose you think, as you are--are married, you
may----"

Charlotte's ready tears began to flow, and Joyce, losing her patience,
passed by her quickly, and ran down into the hall.

It was hard to bid them all "good-bye," her baby smiling at her from
under her warm hood, Lettice and Lota clinging to her, and Susan looking
back to the last moment, as she led the way down Great George Street
with Joy in her arms.

"You must give Uncle Piers my love, you know," Joyce said, "and say I am
coming to-morrow. Good-bye; good-bye."

She stood at the door watching her husband and children down the street,
which opens into Park Street, kissing her hand to them as the little
girls' figures disappeared round the corner.

Lord Maythorne and Charlotte were rather longer in setting out, and a
great deal of hesitation on Charlotte's part, and coaxing on Lord
Maythorne's, was necessary, before they too at last departed. Charlotte
leaning on Lord Maythorne's arm, and walking as if at every step she
expected to meet a rioter, or have a stone thrown at her!

But Great George Street was as quiet as any deserted city, and the
large, respectable houses looked as if they, at least, and their
inhabitants, stood aloof from all questions of dispute, and all stormy
expressions of opinion.

Joyce was an object of some interest to an old lady who lived opposite,
and she craned her neck over the blind in the dining-room to see if it
were actually true that only Joyce and Falcon were left in the house
with Mrs. Arundel.

Joyce, always sensible, and with "her wits about her," as her mother
often said, now closed and bolted the front door, and closed the
shutters in the hall and t