The baby, lulled by the motion of the carriage and the regular sound of the horses' hoofs, was soon in profound slumber. Little Lota and Lettice, who bore the names of the aunt and niece in the Vicar's Close, after taking some buns from their grandmother's well-filled basket, also subsided into sleep. Lota was taken by her grandmother, and Lettice, with the support of Piers' arm, had a comfortable nap. Only Falcon, in the "dickey" behind, was wide awake. He was a noble-looking boy of five years old, with fresh, blue eyes and a fair complexion. He was like his mother in features, and his grandfather in his stout, athletic build. He had a loud, childish voice, and, as he whipped the back of the carriage, he sang lustily, in a sort of monotone, which kept time with the horses' feet: "Home--home--home to father." His mother heard the words, and they found an echo in her heart of "Home--home to Gilbert." Joyce's girlish loveliness had developed into the matured beauty of the mother, which is always so attractive. Her face shone with that soft light of motherhood and happy wifehood which we look for in vain on many faces which are beautiful, but _lack_ something. Her own mother acknowledged the charm, and often thought how much dearer and more beautiful Joyce had become in her eyes since her marriage, and how the father who had loved her so dearly would have rejoiced to see her now. This thought was in her mind when Joyce said: "Is not Lota too heavy for you, mother? Shall we change? Let me give you baby." "No, dear, no; it would be a pity to wake the baby; how sweet she looks. There will never be any children in the old home now, I am afraid." And Mrs. Falconer sighed. "I don't think they are wanted," Joyce said; "but perhaps till people have babies they don't know how delightful they are. Piers is laughing at me." "Not at you. I was only thinking how Gratian and Melville would hate the bother of children about the house." "They were very kind to us," Joyce said. "It seems to me that we may be very thankful Melville married Gratian." "Yes, she keeps him in good order." Mrs. Falconer had still a weak, very weak, place in her heart for Melville, and she said, sharply: "That's not a becoming way to speak of your eldest brother." Piers shrugged his shoulders. He took in, more fully than his mother could, the trouble that Melville's conduct had brought upon them all, especially on Ralph--Ralph, who might have done so well in scholarship, now acting as steward to his brother, with less thanks and less pay than he deserved. It irritated Piers to see Melville's self-satisfaction, and to know that from sheer indolence, if Ralph had not come to the rescue, he would have brought the inheritance of his fathers to hopeless ruin.