But little Joan was frightened, both that night and many another dark hour, when she felt herself alone in the solitary little room. The child's life became very hard and desolate. Aunt Priscilla took no notice of her beyond providing her with food to eat and clothes to wear. She did not talk to her, and she never took her on her lap or kissed her. Sometimes Joan would creep timidly to her side and look up into her face, but Aunt Priscilla never seemed to see her.
There was nothing for the little girl to do but to wander solitarily about the fields or sit up in her lonely room with no one to speak to her for hours together. She was more desolate than she had been in London; for there her mother had sometimes come up to the attic to play with her, or to nurse her in her arms for a few minutes. There was no one to love her now, except old Nathan.
There was a still greater change in Miss Priscilla Parry. The neighbours said she was gone out of her mind; and it was true that all her nature seemed turned to hardness and sternness. She was never seen to smile, nor did she speak a word that was not absolutely necessary. She gave up going to church and market, and she refused to see any visitor who came up to the farm.
On Sunday evening, when the usual meeting was held in her kitchen, and the curious neighbours came in larger numbers than usual, they no longer saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda's pretty face had made so strong a contrast with her aunt's. Miss Priscilla, after Rhoda's foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in which there was a small trap-door, made when her mother was bedridden, that she might hear the prayers and the sermon and the singing in the kitchen below. It was some weeks before old Nathan, who looked every Sunday if the trap-door was open, saw that it had been lifted up, and knew his mistress was listening.
When Miss Priscilla was downstairs about her work it was a sad sight to see her. Her grey hair had gone quite white, and her eyes were worn out with weeping. Her shoulders were bent as if she was always stooping under a heavy burden, and she seldom lifted her head or looked up from the ground. Joan often saw her lips moving, though no sound came through them. Everybody except old Nathan thought she was mad.
CHAPTER III
THE CHILD IN THE MANGER
