One glance, and Mrs. Arundel felt sure she saw before her her son's "Joyce, Sunshine, Birdie! for they call her all those names," he had said.
She looked just now, with her head drooping, and the traces of tears on her cheeks, very like one of the China roses above her, hanging its head after a shower.
Gratian also examined her critically.
She is beautiful, she thought, but she has no style; while the Bishop leaned forward, and asked:
"May we alight?"
"Yes, my lord," Joyce said, in a low, gentle voice. "My mother has seen no visitors for a long time; but she will be pleased to see you, and—"
"Mrs. Arundel, I hope, also, and Miss Gratian Anson," the Bishop said, by way of introduction, "Madam," he continued, as he went into the hall, "Madam, I have heard of your good husband; I had once the pleasure—I may say the honour—of seeing him at the palace, and I desire to express to you my condolences. My son," he added, addressing a young gentleman in clerical dress, who was as much like his father as youth can resemble age, "my son is also anxious to pay his respects. My wife, Mrs. Law, is yet absent on account of her health, but returns to the palace next week."
Both the Bishop and his son were courtly gentlemen of what we call now "the old school," and they had peculiarly clear and sonorous voices; the old man's set in rather a lower key than his son's.
"Pray, my lord," Mrs. Falconer said, "walk in, and I beg you to excuse a desolate sitting room," opening a door to the right of the hall; "I have never had courage to sit here since—since our trouble. Joyce draw up the blinds and set the chairs." Mrs. Falconer said this, with something of her old quickness.
"Our little parlour would be warmer, mother; this room feels cold," Joyce said, in a low tone, as she obeyed her mother, and noticed the cold, damp, unused atmosphere, which always clings to a room that has been closed for some time.