“Mr. Harry’s not coming back; he’s gone straight on to Liverpool; we’re to send his things after him,” she explained to the maids, who were full of curiosity, and vaguely certain that something was wrong. They were already beginning to have their doubts as to that first fine hypothesis about Joan’s lover, and to make out that Harry had more to do with the locking of the door than any “lad” who could be “courting” the daughter of the house; and they were all agog for information, as was natural. The packing up of the cheese and eggs, the bottle of cream (though that was allowed to be of very doubtful expediency), the fine piece of honey-comb, the home-cured ham, all that was best in the house, threw, however, an air of stability and reality about Harry, and suppressed the first whispers against him. There could be nothing wrong about a young man for whom such a hamper was being prepared; neither a deadly quarrel with his family, nor any trouble at his office, nor roguery of any kind was compatible with that hamper. It meant a well-doing respectable youth eating good breakfasts (always a sure sign of good morals) and coming in regularly to all his meals. The hamper eased the mind generally of the house. Joscelyn himself saw it as he passed, and, though he took no notice, was comforted too. His uneasiness had been angry rather than anxious; but then the anger had been partly against himself, and a consciousness that humbled him of having laid himself open to criticism and made a foolish exhibition of temper, had given it a double sting. It was one of the finest hams he ever had seen which he saw packed into the hamper, and he grudged it to Harry, but all the same it eased his mind. The fellow he said to himself, had taken no harm; he was all right. He asked no questions, but his mind was relieved. When they were all put into the cart in the evening, to be taken down to the nearest station, even Mrs. Joscelyn herself came out to the door to watch them go off. It was a soft evening, the warmest that had been that season; the wind had changed into the west, the sun was setting in a glow of crimson, the whole valley canopied over with clouds full of rosy reflection. In the distance one of these rose-clouds caught the mirror of the river, and glowed in that, repeating its warm and smiling tone of colour in the midst of the gray fields of the surrounding landscape and the gray houses of the village. At the back door, where the cart was standing, the servants were all congregated as if it wanted half-a-dozen people to put up two portmanteaus and a hamper. Joan gave a hand herself with that last precious burden. “That’s the most worth of a’,” said the cook. “Ye may buy shirts and waistcoats, but you’ll no buy butter like ours, nor a ham to compare with that--and my griddle-cakes, I never made better.” “It’s to be hoped,” said the dairy-maid, “they’ll not spoil.”