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When she had gone on a little, and reached the beginning of the avenue, a shadow shaped itself out of the darkness of the night, and a shawl, unnecessary and undesired, was quickly put upon her shoulders. ‘I was told to bring you this—and I’ve been waiting half an hour. Oh, keep it on, the night is chilly—to please me, Joyce.’

‘Why should you make me do what I don’t wish, to please you?’

‘Well, if it is what you don’t wish; but consider that your health is of great consequence, and if you were to catch cold—or any unpleasant thing——’

‘There could not be a better time,’ said Joyce, ‘at the beginning of the holidays.’

‘Has something gone wrong with you to-night?—you are not as sweet as your ordinary—oh yes—sweet always, sweet ever to me. But something has come over you. You are so merry about them sometimes. You make me laugh, though I am not sure that it is right to laugh at the aristocracy—they have their difficulties, as we have ours.’

‘I wonder at you! Wherein are they different?—the same flesh and blood, I hope—no better education, often not so good. What then? Who was it they referred to for everything to-night?—to know all about the story and the history: the history of their own country, and we in sight of the very scene! Who did they come to ask from as if I were an oracle? and you say that knowledge is power——’