unconscious that the fair face
of which he caught sight, from under the shadow of the large bonnet,
was that of Melville's sister.

"What a sweet face!" he thought; and then, as Joyce turned suddenly
towards the spot by the font where the two gentlemen were standing, a
bright blush and smile, made her look irresistibly lovely.

"Who is that young lady, Melville? She knows you." For Joyce had made a
step forward, and then apparently changed her mind and went towards the
north door with Charlotte.

Melville fingered his cravat, and settled his chin in its place above
it. "That little girl dressed as if she came out of Noah's ark is my
sister! Come, you will have another opportunity of cultivating her
acquaintance, and you want to call at the Palace, don't you?"

"My mother charged me to do so; but there is no haste."

"Oh, you had better not lose time, or you may not find your legs under
the Bishop's mahogany. We live some miles out, you know."

Mr. Arundel turned his head round twice to take a last look at the
retreating figures, and then allowed Melville to tuck his arm in his,
and walk down the cloisters with him to the Palace.

Melville was in fact very anxious to show off his intimacy with Mr.
Arundel to the bishop, for he could not hide from himself the fact that
the ecclesiastical _elite_ of Wells had not paid him the attention he
hoped to receive. The truth was that rumours of Melville's gay and
careless life, and the anxiety he had given his father, had reached the
ears of some in authority. Heads of colleges reported his behaviour at
Oxford, and Melville had been sent down, not for what may be called
serious offences; but still the character hung about him of a man who
cared for nothing earnestly; reading or rowing, it was all alike.
Nothing that Melville did was done with singleness of purpose, except,
as his father sometimes said, with a sigh, "dress himself like a
mountebank and copy London fashions."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III.

THE PALACE.

The old baronial Palace of Wells, surrounded by its moat and reached by
a drawbridge--not raised now as in olden times,--is in perfect harmony
with the city in which it stands. In it, but not of it; for when once
the gateway is passed, the near neighbourhood of the market-place is
forgotten, such traffic as this little city knows is left behind; and
the gardens of the Palace might well be supposed to be far from all
human habitations, so complete