Joyce seated herself, and wrote a few words accepting the invitation from Saturday to the Monday following, and took it herself to the footman. "You should have rung for Phoebe, really Joyce, my _dear_!" But it was too late. Charlotte, who had been "composing" in the sitting-room upstairs, had heard voices, and now came down just as Joyce had closed the door on the footman from the palace. "An invitation to _stay_ at the palace! Oh! Joyce, how fortunate you are. Mrs. Law might have asked me!" "She knows you live in the place, my love," said Miss Falconer. Charlotte sighed. "If I did _not_ live here it would be all the same." But Charlotte was really an amiable girl, and her devotion to Joyce was sincere and true. "Well," she said, "what will you wear, dear? Can I lend you any pretty things? My amber beads--or--my filigree comb. Oh! I forgot! Of course, you are still in deep black." "It is very kind of you, Charlotte," Joyce said; "you always are kind; but I don't want anything." The whole of that day Joyce's visit to the palace engrossed the little party in the Vicar's Close. Some cronies of Miss Falconer came in for a gossip by the fireside, and were duly informed of the invitation, and were duly congratulatory and a little jealous, although there was a certain amount of satisfaction, that it was not Charlotte whom Mrs. Law had delighted to honour. It was a memorable visit to Joyce, and in a way she little expected. The first evening passed pleasantly; and with a white muslin fichu, which Miss Falconer insisted upon making for her, crossed over her black gown, Joyce looked her best. The sleeves of best gowns in those days were cut rather short, and Joyce wore on her round, white arms a pair of black lace mittens, which Charlotte had lent her. Her beautiful hair needed no adornment; it fell round her forehead in natural curls, and was piled up without the help of cushions or frizzettes, a natural crown of chesnut and gold. As at Barley Wood, so at the palace; Joyce was too simple-minded to be stiff or constrained in manner, and she conversed so pleasantly with a young son of the bishop, who gave her his arm when they went to dinner, that he, in his turn, did his best to be agreeable, and she was soon telling him of her little sailor brothers, of Piers and his collection of butterflies, of Ralph and his love of study, and the brave way in which he had come to live at Fair Acres and do his best to turn into a farmer.