"After all," Mrs. Arundel said, "neither you nor I have any right over Charlotte. If she is warned, that is all we can do. If Miss Falconer consents, she is her lawful guardian, and stands in the place of her mother." "Shall we tell Gilbert?" "I think not, he cannot take any active part in the matter; Dr. Smith has been here, and told me he did not think Gilbert would be able to return to the office for some time, that he had sustained a slight concussion of the brain, and that we were to be careful not to worry him with anything. He advises our making a move to Abbot's Leigh, to that house of Mr. Bayley's, as soon as we can arrange it, and Gilbert is able to bear the drive. He is very kind, and offered his carriage." "That will be delightful," Joyce said; "the trees are still beautiful in colour, and oh! to be in the real country again with the children. If only Charlotte were not so utterly foolish! I think I shall tell Gilbert quietly, when we are alone together; for he ought to know. Come, baby Joy, let us go and see dear father." Gilbert turned his head towards the door as Joyce came in. "Here is baby Joy come to kiss father," she said, dropping the baby down gently into her father's arms. "Little Joy; well, she looks as sweet as ever--like her mother, well-named. You have been away an age," he said; "it's always like the sun going behind a cloud when you are gone." "The sun is very grateful for the compliment," Joyce said, seating herself on a low stool by the sofa; "and so is the little sun, isn't she, baby?" The baby had possessed herself of her father's watch-chain, and was sucking it vigorously. "I took Falcon to Grannie, because he made your head ache, and I brought back Joy, because she never could make anyone's head ache." "Poor little Falcon! I am afraid I was very cantankerous this morning, but that dreadful trumpet was rather too much. It is excessively stupid of me to be so long getting well; but, do you know, I am haunted with those terrible scenes of last week, and, with the best intentions of amusing me, Bayley came here and described the condition of Queen's Square, and the charred bodies they found, one, the corpse of an old woman, with a bit of red petticoat clinging to it. Ah! it is awful to think of; and the cure for all this seems so far off." "It will come at last," Joyce said, with quiet decision. "Yes, when the whole nation wakes up to see the needs of the poor. We don't help them, nor try to raise them out of their ignorance of the commonest laws of humanity. We have been wholly neglectful of their souls and bodies, and then when they are heated by drink, and let loose their fury against some grievance, like the entrance of the Anti-Reform Recorder into Bristol, we hunt them down, trample them under foot, and never look below the surface to find out what is the bitter root, from which all this springs."