"Yes; get up and go away. I will show you the gate into the road."
"Lady," said the girl, passionately, "I came to see you. I saw you sobbing and crying on the bench yonder, for I got into the plantation that way. I heard you sob, and call 'Father,' and then my heart nearly broke, and I came round at the back and got over the hedge. I felt as if I dare not speak to you. Do you know me, lady?"
"Yes," Joyce said; "of course I see who you are, but I—I cannot do anything for you, and we are all in great grief, very, very great grief," Joyce said, with a sudden spasm of agony in her voice.
"I know it, I know it, that's why I came; and I'm in grief, too. Father is gone away, no one knows where; the boys have run off, and, oh! the baby is dead. I did think I'd keep him, for mother's sake; but, in a drunken fit, father threw a pot of boiling water at me. It missed me, and the baby caught it on his neck and face, and it scalded him dreadful. The school mistress was kind, and so was Mrs. Amos, she that owns the farm; but he died—he died—and I am all alone. Oh! Miss, oh! dear young lady, pity me."
"I do pity you," Joyce said. "But where is your father? For you must be aware that suspicion points to him as the cause of my—of my dear father's death."
"Yes, I do know it. Oh! miss, forgive me, and let me come and serve you. I want no wage; but I'd die for you, if that would do you good. I have never forgot your face that night, nor how you spoke soft then instead of angry. Oh, miss, let me come and live with you. I will sleep on the ground. I'll do the work of two in the dairy, or in the house, and I want no wage. Poor mother always said God would take care of me, but He has taken away the baby, He has, that is the cruellest part. And father; oh! miss, you can't tell what it is to be filled with shame about a father."
"No, indeed," Joyce said. "No; I know what it is to be proud of one, and to——" Her voice broke down, and Piers said:
"She ought to go away, Joyce; she can't be left here."
But Joyce seemed to be thinking for a few minutes. Here was a girl whose father had, as everyone thought, been the cause of her father's death; here was the daughter of this man, coming to her and begging to be taken into the house, to be her servant? Was it possible?
With a discretion far beyond her years, Joyce said, "I will make inquiries about you from the school mistress, and if I find you really bear a good character, I will get you a place, and——"