The last words were added after a pause, with involuntary tenderness. Joan was anxious, too, about her brother, so that a slight gleam of understanding had aroused her mind. Poor dear! to take on like that for every trifle, to take nothing easy, was a state of mind which irritated Joan; but this time it was not so wonderful. This time she was anxious herself, and there was a cause for it. Long before Simon came back she had rejected her own suggestion, that Harry must have gone to the “Red Lion.” And if not there, where had he gone? where had he spent the night? She kept her eyes upon the window or the door all the morning, darting forth whenever she saw any stranger approach, prepared to find a message from some cottage or outlying hamlet to bring her news of Harry. He would have the sense to send, she thought; surely he would have the sense to send word. He would know the state in which his mother would be. But the long hours of the morning went on till noon, and nobody came. They had never seemed to Joan so long before. She had never known what it was before to do her work with a divided interest, and on a strain of expectation. When she saw old Simon coming along the road with his empty basket on his arm and his hat in one hand, while with the other, and a spotted blue handkerchief, he wiped his furrowed forehead, a wild sense of impatience came over her. She marched out upon him, the big wooden spoon, with which she had been taking the cream off the milk, still in her hand. He thought she was going to attack him with this inappropriate but yet dangerous weapon. “Well?” she said, with a sort of gasp; “_well?_” Her fervour bewildered him, for she had been quite calm when she gave him the commission, and he stared at her with a mixture of surprise and alarm. “Oh ay, Miss Joan, a’ well,” said old Simon. He had almost forgotten the occasion of his early visit to the “Red Lion;” or was it that desire to exasperate that sometimes seizes upon an old servant? It was all she could do not to seize him by the shoulders and shake his news out of him. She cried out in spite of herself, stamping her foot upon the hard road. “What answer have ye brought? You have been out four hours, if you’ve been a minute. I am waiting my answer,” she cried, in a strange, half-stifled voice. “What answer?” said Simon, innocently; and then a gleam of intelligence came over his face. “I was a fool to forget. There’s been nobody lodging at the ‘Red Lion,’ Miss Joan, if that’s what you mean. The woman said nobody. He left last night at eleven o’clock; that’s all she could tell me. He’ll have gotten to Mr. Will’s many a long hour ago. It was a fine night, and he’s a fine walker. There was nothing to be ooneasy aboot, Miss Joan.” Joan gave his arm a shake unconsciously, in spite of herself, then dropped it. “Who said I was uneasy? but you might have come back hours ago, Simon, when I told you I wanted to hear.”