"Yes, pray come, Joyce; there is no one to pour out tea, or cut the cake. Mother says you ought not to have put sugar on the cake," said Bunny. "I am so glad you did." Joyce flew swiftly down through the wood, and by the time Mr. Arundel and her brothers had reached the house, she was at her post behind the large bronze urn, and taking up her accustomed duties with a face so bright and winning, that her mother forgot her vexation, merely saying: "I like punctuality at meals, Joyce, especially on Sunday; for it puts the servants out if they are driven." "Why, my Sunshine," her father said, "where have you been hiding? We thought you were lost." "Joyce has been sitting under the fir-tree with Mr. Arundel," shouted Bunny in his ringing, boyish treble. "They have been there two hours." Bunny was in advance of the other boys and their guest; and it was Piers who said: "You need not shout as if you were the town-crier!" While Melville dragged himself out of the depths of a large sofa covered with horse-hair, where he had been sleeping off the effects of his large dinner and repeated glasses of ale and wine, and said the boys' voices were a perfect nuisance, and he did not know what Arundel thought of such a hubbub. A laugh from the person in question, as he passed the open window with Ralph, seemed to point to the fact that Gilbert had as light a heart as any of the young brothers at whom Melville so often took offence. Family prayers were the exception in many households in these days; but as there was only one service in the church on Sundays, the squire, following his father's custom before him, always assembled the household in the evening, and read a chapter from the old family Bible, and a short dry sermon with a prayer from an old book, in which was written his mother's name. It might be questioned whether the rosy-cheeked maiden and the stalwart young men from the Farm, who sat with their hands one on each knee, staring at Melville and the visitor, as strange specimens of humanity, could understand a word of the sermon or follow the prayer. Perhaps Joyce scarcely realised how dry and formal this service was, and yet this evening a new spirit seemed to be stirring within her, an aspiration for something, she hardly knew what, but something which was not outside of her, but touched her inmost heart. Her mood was subdued and quiet during the rest of the evening, and when she knocked at Piers' door to be admitted, as was her invariable custom, to make his room tidy, and place his crutches near the bed, the boy said: "Do you like Mr. Arundel, Joyce?" "Yes, dear; I think I like him very much." Piers was silent. "The next thing will be that you like him better than me." "Nonsense, Piers; is that likely?" Joyce had finished her labours in the little room now, and had seated herself in the window-seat looking out into the grounds.