He was coming out of the house now as Joyce opened the little iron gate, his horse waiting for him at the corner.
The greeting between the doctor and Joyce was unusually warm; he admired her beautiful, beaming face, and always liked to exchange a word with her.
"It is great news," he said; "though the crucial test is yet to come."
"Yes," Joyce said; "but surely the dear old Lords will not obstruct the bill."
"The dear old Bishops will do so," the doctor said, "your friend at Wells amongst them."
"Well," Joyce said, "he is sure to do what he does because he thinks it is right, not because other people do it."
The doctor laughed again; evidently he was not so sure of the Bishop. Then, with a pleasant smile to Charlotte, the doctor went away, just turning back for a moment to say, "I saw your old friend, Mrs. Hannah More's doctor, in consultation this morning, and he incidentally mentioned that she was failing rather visibly. Have you seen her of late?"
"I am going there this afternoon," Joyce said. "I want so much to see her."
"I would not delay," the doctor said, significantly, and then he was gone.
After the first greeting. Piers dragged Joyce off to his den, to show her a beautiful specimen of quartz, of which he had possessed himself the day before for a mere trifle.
And then he had diagrams to show her, which he had drawn, of several crystals, as seen through the microscope; and then he divulged the doctor's plan, that he should prepare a good many of such diagrams for him to use at a lecture he was to give in the Bristol Museum, some evening in the course of the coming winter.
I do not think there is any quality more attractive than that, which Joyce possessed in a remarkable degree, of throwing herself--not superficially, as Gratian did, but really and heartily--into the interests of other people.
Any one watching her face as she bent over Piers' treasures, and examined his drawings, would have scarcely believed that she was the mother of four children, to whom she was devoted.
Piers was seated at his table, and she was standing over him, with one hand upon his shoulder, while, with the other, she now and then stroked back his hair, as in old days.
It is strange to think how the quiet, happy life of home, and home interests may go on, while the storm of political strife, and religious controversy rages without. It was thus with Sir Thomas Browne, the philosopher and physician, of Norwich, who produced his great work, the "Religio Medici," when England stood on the eve of the greatest storm, which ever burst over her. It was thus with many less distinguished and simple souls, who went about their accustomed duties and pleasures, and took up their daily burden of cares and toil, and gave but little heed to the jarring elements without.