"Yes," he answered cheerily. "I must just wait to see those rascals, the hill-ponies, and then I must go back to the barbarous big world, into which you are so anxious to penetrate."
"Father has determined to sell Nance," she said sadly; "so I can't saddle the white horse and be off."
"And you are sorry to lose your old friend?" he said kindly.
"One has to give up everything," she answered.
"Not everything," Hieronymus said. "Not the nasty things, for instance--only the nice things!"
Joan laughed and dipped her pen into the ink.
"The truth of it is, I'm not in the least inclined to work this morning," said Hieronymus.
Joan waited, the pen in her hand. He had said that so many times before, and yet he had always ended by doing some work after all.
"I believe that my stern task-mistress, my dear love who died so many years ago--I believe that even she would give me a holiday to-day," Hieronymus said. "And she always claimed so much work of me; she was never satisfied. I think she considered me a lazy fellow, who needed spurring on. She had great ambitions for me; she believed everything of me, and wished me to work out her ambitions, not for the sake of the fame and the name, but for the sake of the good it does us all to grapple with ourselves."
He had drawn from his pocket a small miniature of a sweet-looking woman. It was a spiritual face, with tender eyes; a face to linger in one's memory.