"Yes," he answered cheerily. "I must just wait to see those rascals, the hill-ponies, and then I must go back to the barbarous big world, into which you are so anxious to penetrate." "Father has determined to sell Nance," she said sadly; "so I can’t saddle the white horse and be off." "And you are sorry to lose your old friend?" he said kindly. "One has to give up everything," she answered. "Not everything," Hieronymus said. "Not the nasty things, for instance--only the nice things!" Joan laughed and dipped her pen into the ink. "The truth of it is, I’m not in the least inclined to work this morning," said Hieronymus. Joan waited, the pen in her hand. He had said that so many times before, and yet he had always ended by doing some work after all. "I believe that my stern task-mistress, my dear love who died so many years ago--I believe that even she would give me a holiday to-day," Hieronymus said. "And she always claimed so much work of me; she was never satisfied. I think she considered me a lazy fellow, who needed spurring on. She had great ambitions for me; she believed everything of me, and wished me to work out her ambitions, not for the sake of the fame and the name, but for the sake of the good it does us all to grapple with ourselves." He had drawn from his pocket a small miniature of a sweet-looking woman. It was a spiritual face, with tender eyes; a face to linger in one’s memory. "When she first died," Hieronymus continued, as though to himself, "I could not have written a line without this dear face before me. It served to remind me that although I was unhappy and lonely, I must work if only to please her. That is what I had done when she was alive, and it seemed disloyal not to do so when she was dead. And it was the only comfort I had; but a strong comfort, filling full the heart. It is ten years now since she died; but I scarcely need the miniature, the dear face is always before me. Ten years ago, and I am still alive, and sometimes, often indeed, very happy; she was always glad when I laughed cheerily, or I made some fun out of nothing. ’What a stupid boy you are!’ she would say. But she laughed all the same. We were very happy together, she and I; we had loved each other a long time, in spite of many difficulties and troubles. But the troubles had cleared, and we were just going to make our little home together when she died." There was no tremor in his voice as he spoke.