"It's all beautifully neat, Joyce," she said, looking round her with a critical air. "Well, you don't regret now I taught you useful things, though you have no accomplishments like that poor, foolish Charlotte?" They were a very happy party at an early dinner, and the good arrangement of everything, and the excellence of the bill of fare, brought many compliments to Joyce, especially from her mother. "Except at Fair Acres," she said, "she had never tasted such light pastry, or such good plum-puddings and mincemeat. The turkey, too----" "Ah!" Joyce said, "the turkey came with a hamper of good things from Fair Acres. Dear Ralph is continually despatching home produce." The real master of Fair Acres did not seem at all discomforted at this proof of his ignorance of his own estate. Melville had resigned himself to an easy-going life, and, being well kept in check by his wife as to unlimited wine and spirits, he managed to pass muster, and was looked upon by his neighbours as a "good-natured fellow, a little given to airs, and not worthy to tread in his father's shoes; but it might have been worse." Poor praise this; and of how many besides Melville do we say, sometimes with an aching heart, "It might have been worse; but it might have been oh! so much better." Wasted lives, neglected opportunities, withered hopes, how thick they lie strewn upon our paths as the autumn of life is sinking into the days of winter barrenness and dearth. But there is a bright "beyond" for faithful hearts, where the things we know not now we shall know then, and this bewildering maze of doubts and fears shall be made plain in the light of God's love. A certain wistful look in Piers' eyes made Joyce think he would like to talk to her alone. So, when the evening shadows were closing over the waters of the Severn, and the blue mountains fading into obscurity, and the white-winged seagulls sought their nests, Joyce asked her brother to come out with her, for it was more like midsummer than Christmas. Joyce put her arm on her brother's shoulder as of old, and they went together to the churchyard, where the old grey tower of the church stood out solemnly against the after-glow in the west, where a planet shimmered in the opal depths. "The old year is dying with a smile upon its face," Piers said. "It is hard to believe we are in midwinter." "Very hard," Joyce replied; "and it is a time when, though my present is so happy and so brimful of thanksgiving, the past comes back, and will not be forgotten." "I am glad you don't forget the dear old days," Piers said. "Forget! oh! no; the sadness of the past does not shadow my happy present, but it chastens it. I always think of dear father when I stand here, and poor merry, happy Bunny, swept into that surging sea."