Joyce led the way, thankful to see how much more her mother looked like herself, as she told to the sympathetic ear of the Bishop the story of her grief.
Gratian took pains to suit herself to her company; she always did. She linked her arm through Joyce's, and talked in a low voice, instead of her wonted high pitched rattle. She told her how grieved she felt for her; she could easily imagine what such a sorrow must be; for she, a "poor orphan" herself, could indeed sympathise with her.
So she talked, as they paced the gravel walk under the sunny south wall of the old-fashioned garden, where the arms of a huge pear-tree were still heavily laden with brown fruit, and where bushes of pale lilac, Michaelmas daisies, and lavender, still attracted a number of late bees and errant wasps, who, like all the rest of the world, found it hard to believe that this was the November sunshine of a short winter's day, and not the long drawn out heat of July.
"I should like to know more of you; to see more," Gratian was saying. "Of course, I expected you were charming from what Gilbert told me. Gilbert and I are _great_ friends; he tells me everything."
A scarcely perceptible recoil, in the little figure by her side, was not lost on Gratian.
"Yes," she said, "he is a dear boy--a little spoiled by the notions he has taken up lately; but they are spreading everywhere. The Cambridge men are even worse than the Oxford men. However, I won't quarrel with Gilbert about that, and I can take a little preachment from him. Aunt Bella is pleased with anything Gilbert says or does; and as to Maythorne----"
Joyce started, very visibly this time, at that name, and said, withdrawing her hand from her companion's arm, and stooping to gather some sprigs of lavender:
"I suppose Lord Maythorne is a relation of yours?"
"Distant; very distant," was the reply. "A connection is nearer the truth."
"Because," Joyce said, "I think he is a very bad and wicked man, and I wish you could tell him never to come here again."
"Come here! Has he been here," Gratian exclaimed. "What on earth did he come here for?"
"He had not been gone half-an-hour before the Bishop's carriage drove up. He has, as you know, done my eldest brother a great deal of mischief; and, though my dear father thought he had cleared all his debts, this Lord Maythorne says that he still owes him a great deal, and we cannot pay it."