"Ah!" exclaimed Gratian; "I knew there was a daughter. Did I not tell you I knew you were in love? Tell me her name. Come! We are such old friends. Surely you might tell me." "Really, Gratian, I will tell you Miss Falconer's name if you so particularly wish to hear it. I--" "I will guess it. Let me see. I love my love with an A, because she is amiable, and I took her to the sign of the Archer, and fed her with apples, and her name is Angela. Not right? Well, I will go through the alphabet, and I must surely be right at last. I love my love with a B----." "Pray stop," Gilbert said. "I don't feel in a jesting mood, somehow." "Not ready to wear a cap and bells? Poor Gilbert. You feel more like sitting under a willow tree and singing 'Poor Mary Anne.'" "Which is our house?" Gilbert asked. "Not that one; not up the steps. But you shall not go in till you tell me her name." "She is called Joyce," Gilbert said, in despair. "Ah! then you allow there is only one _she_ for you in all the world, and _she_ is called Joyce." "Now, I do hope you are satisfied," Gilbert said. She laughed that loud, ringing laugh, as she ran upstairs before him. "Oh! of course I am satisfied," she said. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. BARLEY WOOD. Great preparations were made in the Vicar's Close at Wells for Charlotte's visit to Barley Wood. Her aunt gave her orders as to what she was to wear every day; how she was to be sure to make a proper curtsey at the door of the drawing-room when she entered Mrs. More's presence; that she was to play on the piano, and exhibit the screens she had just painted; and if Mrs. More admired them, she was to beg her to do her the favour to accept them. "Do not let Joyce commit herself by any rustic manners; you who have been carefully educated, my dear Charlotte, must try to do me credit, and give Joyce a hint--" "Joyce is so lovely!" Charlotte exclaimed, "it scarcely matters what she says, or wears." "My dear, Joyce has no _style_, and is given to express herself too freely; and, I _think_, her voice is sometimes pitched in too high a key. Yours is gentle and well modulated; now do me credit at Barley Wood, Charlotte; I have taken so much pains to form you on the model of a true gentlewoman; and you must remember how many girls would think it a great honour to pay a visit to Mrs. Hannah More." Charlotte promised to do her best; and when her uncle called to take her to the "Swan," where the four-wheel was waiting, she was in a flutter of excitement. Mr. Falconer greeted his sister in his usual frank kindly manner; and while Charlotte ran upstairs to get ready, Miss Falconer said: "I am glad to hear Melville is gone." The squire sighed. "Yes, he is gone, and his mother finds it hard to part from him." "Hard to part from him! Really, Arthur, when one considers how much anxiety he has caused, I wonder you should say that."