Her train would not, however, start for twenty minutes, so she was able to tell her mistress that she had seen Miss Mirlees in charge of a grey-haired coachman, who, with two little girls, awaited her arrival. "Are you the young person for Springfield Park?" asked the man. Joyce replied in the affirmative. "I am the coachman. The groom would have brought only a trap, but the little ladies were wild to see their new maid, and Mrs. Ross would only trust the children with me." The man intended Joyce to understand that to drive any but members of the family and their friends would be beneath the dignity of so old a servant, and that the presence of the little girls explained his own. "No doubt Mrs. Ross feels that the children are safest with you," said Joyce. "Just so. She has had time to know what I am, for I drove her when she was no bigger than the least of them, and I was in her father's service. Now you step in next the eldest one—Miss Mary. She should have been a boy by rights, but nobody would like to change her for one now. Your things will be brought by that lad, who has a trap close at hand. They are all together, I suppose?" Joyce pointed to her belongings on the platform, said farewell to her escort, and sent messages of thanks and love to Mrs. Caruth. Then she followed the coachman to a little carriage, in which were seated two lovely children in the present charge of the station-master's daughter. "Come in," cried the elder child. "We wanted to see you, so mamma let Price bring us. I am Mary, 'papa's Molly,' they call me, and that is Alice. She turns her face away because she is shy, but she will be friends soon. Mamma said we must be very good and not make you sorry, because you have no father and mother." Tears sprang into Joyce's eyes, which the child noted instantly, and her own face grew sorrowful. "Why do you cry?" she said. "Let me kiss the tears away, as mamma does mine, if I am only sorry, not naughty." The winsome creature pulled Joyce's head down to her own and smiled, until her new attendant was fain to smile in response. "There, that is right. Now look how pretty the park is, and see the deer under the trees. They feed out of our hands, and they will know you very soon, because you will be with us." Joyce saw that her new surroundings would be even more beautiful than her uncle's home, and she drank in with delight the loveliness which met her eyes on every side, whilst Mary prattled unceasingly till they reached the house. There she was met by a pleasant, motherly person, who introduced herself as Mrs. Powell, the housekeeper, and led her upstairs to a good-sized cheerful room, very comfortably furnished, and opening into a still larger one, in which were two little beds. Both rooms again opened into the day nursery, a delightful apartment, in which everything suggested the personal superintendence of a thoughtful, loving mother.