"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----"
"I want no place apart from _you_" the girl said, passionately. "If I could die to undo my father's wicked deed, I would die, and," she added, sadly, "it ain't much I have to live for now the baby's gone. But if you won't take me, well, I'll tramp to Bristol; and if I can't get bread in an honest way, I must get it somehow else."
"No, no; don't say that. I must consider and think, and if I can take you I will. Mrs. More is so ill, so ill that it is feared she will not live, so I can't write to her. But I will _think_, and," she added, in a low voice, "I will pray about it. I am in great trouble myself; we are all in great trouble."
"I know it, I know it. Oh! dear lady, ever since night and day, night and day, I have prayed for you, and that God would keep you."
There was something in the girl's despairing voice which touched Joyce to the heart.
"Come round to the kitchen door with me," she said, "and I will see that you have rest and food. I am sure you want both."
"I don't want rest; there is no rest in me, and food chokes me."
But Joyce took no notice of this, and saying, decidedly, "follow me," she put her hand on Piers' shoulder, and they went through the plantation to the house, skirting it to the left instead of crossing it, and so round to the stable-yard and the back premises.
Mrs. Falconer never had old maid servants; she trained girls to fill the places in her household, and of these, there was an endless stream passing through. The two in the kitchen now were both kindly, good-tempered girls, utterly ignorant, but simple-hearted and honest.