"Whatever is the matter, Joyce?" cried I, I'm afraid, crossly enough. She turned her face round to me smiling. I felt a throb of shame. Only that very morning tears of tenderness had come into my eyes, as I thought of the pleasure she had taken in sitting hours together to do fine embroidery for me when she might have been in the fields! But before I could say any more, and before she could answer, mother came in.
"Joyce," said she, "here's Mr. Hoad with his daughters, and father wants us to make 'em welcome to tea. I'm sure we're not fit to make any one welcome to-day—the butter coming so bad, and all the ironing to do, and the best-parlor not turned out this week past. But whatever father says is right, of course, so I suppose they must stay."
Joyce looked up with her patient, gentle eyes.
"Of course we will make them welcome," said she. "I'll set the drawing-room straight." And she and mother went out together to see to the washing of the best teacups, and the uncovering of the best furniture.
I had not said a word. Mother and Joyce no doubt found it natural enough that I should not speak, for they both knew my aversion to the Hoad family. But at that moment I was not thinking of the Hoads. I was thinking of nothing but Joyce and Harrod, and the parcel which still lay on the table. Mother had not noticed it.
As soon as she and my sister were gone out, I darted towards it and opened it. Had he not said that it was meant for me?
It contained a delicate rose-colored silk shawl, strewn with little white flowers, and finished with long fringes—a soft, quaint garment that reminded one of one's grandmothers even then, and was choice and dainty enough for the sprucest of them.
It was perfectly suited to Joyce, who always had something of the air of an old picture; but to me—commonplace, workaday me, with my red hair—how could he have thought of such a thing?
I held it in my hand a long time, looking at it and wondering. It was not that I was surprised that he should give me a present; to tell the truth, I had looked for a present from him, but I had thought it would be a book—a book like one of those in his father's old library that I had so much envied. How was it that he had chosen a thing so unsuited to me, and so well suited to Joyce?