“Middling, for that.  The pay’s not amiss, but there’s a great deal to do, and Lady Mount Severn’s too much of a Tartar for me.”

Joyce looked at her in surprise.  “What have you to do with Lady Mount Severn?”

“Well, that’s good!  It’s where I am at service.”

“At Lady Mount Severn’s?”

“Why not?  I have been there two years.  It is not a great deal longer I shall stop, though; she had too much vinegar in her for me.  But it poses me to imagine what on earth could have induced you to fancy I should go off with that Dick Hare,” she added, for she could not forget the grievance.

“Look at the circumstances,” argued Joyce.  “You both disappeared.”

“But not together.”

“Nearly together.  There were only a few days intervening.  And you had neither money nor friends.”

“You don’t know what I had.  But I would rather have died of want on father’s grave than have shared his means,” continued Afy, growing passionate again.

“Where is he?  Not hung, or I should have heard of it.”

“He has never been seen since that night, Afy.”

“Nor heard of?”

“Nor heard of.  Most people think he is in Australia, or some other foreign land.”

“The best place for him; the more distance he puts between him and home, the better.  If he does come back, I hope he’ll get his desserts—­which is a rope’s end.  I’d go to his hanging.”

“You are as bitter against him as Mr. Justice Hare.  He would bring his son back to suffer, if he could.”

“A cross-grained old camel!” remarked Afy, in allusion to the qualities, social and amiable, of the revered justice.  “I don’t defend Dick Hare—­I hate him too much for that—­but if his father had treated him differently, Dick might have been different.  Well, let’s talk of something else; the subject invariably gives me the shivers.  Who is mistress here?”

“Miss Carlyle.”

“Oh, I might have guessed that.  Is she as fierce as ever?”

“There is little alteration in her.”

“And there won’t be on this side the grave.  I say, Joyce, I don’t want to encounter her; she might set on at me, like she has done many a time in the old days.  Little love was there lost between me and Corny Carlyle.  Is Mr. Carlyle at home?”

“He will be home to dinner.  I dare say you would like some tea; you shall come and take it with me and Wilson, in the nursery.”

“I was thinking you might have the grace to offer me something,” cried Afy.  “I intend to stop till to-morrow in the neighborhood.  My lady gave me two days’ holiday—­for she was going to see her dreadful old grandmother, where she can’t take a maid—­and I thought I’d use it in coming to have a look at the old place again.  Don’t stare at me in that blank way, as if you feared I should ask the grand loan of sleeping here.  I shall sleep at the Mount Severn Arms.”

“I was not glancing at such a thought, Afy.  Come and take your bonnet off.”