Joyce was sadly uncertain what to do or how to behave herself in her new home. She took possession of the room which was given to her as a sitting-room, with a confused sense that she was meant to remain there, which was half a relief and half a trouble to her. To live there all alone except when she was called to meals was dreadfully dreary, although it felt almost a pleasure for the first moment to be alone. She brought out her writing things, which were of a very humble description, and better suited to the back window in the cottage than to the pretty writing-table upon which she now arranged them,—a large old blotting-book, distended with the many exercises and school-papers it had been accustomed to hold, and a shabby rosewood desk, which she had got several years ago as the prize of one of her examinations. How shabby they looked, quite out of place, unfit to be brought into this beautiful house! Joyce paused a moment to wonder whether she herself was as much out of place in her brown frock, which, though it was made like Greta’s, and so simple and quiet that it could not be vulgar, was yet a dress very suitable for the schoolmistress. She brought down her few books, some of which were prizes too, and still more deplorable in their cheap gilding than the simply shabby ones. Nobody could say that the bindings were not vulgar, although it was Milton, and Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and the Lay of the Last Minstrel that were within. She made a row of them in the pretty bookshelves, and they looked like common people intruding into a fine house, as she herself was doing. Common people! Milton and Wordsworth! That showed how little was told by the outside; and Joyce was not without a proud consciousness swelling in her breast that she, too, in her brown frock, and with her village schoolmistress’s traditions, was not common or unworthy.
Her father had met her coming downstairs with her arms full
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 of the books, and had stopped to take them from her with a shocked look, and insisted on carrying them down for her. ‘But why didn’t you ring for somebody to do it, my dear?’ he said. ‘They are not heavy,’ said Joyce; ‘they are no trouble,—and I always do things for myself.’ ‘But you must not here,’ Colonel Hayward said, putting them down on the table, and pausing a moment to brush off with his handkerchief the little stains of dust which they had left on his irreproachable coat. Joyce felt that little movement with another keen sensation of inappropriateness. It was not right, because she was unaccustomed to being served by others, that Colonel Hayward, a distinguished soldier, should get specks of dust on his coat. A hot blush enveloped her like a flame, while she stood looking at him, not knowing whether to say anything, whether to try to express the distress and bewilderment that filled her being, or if it would be better to be silent and mutely avoid such an occurrence again.
He looked up at her when he had brushed away the last speck, and smiled. ‘Books will gather dust,’ he said. ‘Don’t look as if you were to blame, my dear. But you must remember, Joyce, you are the young lady of the house, and everything in it is at your command.’ He patted her shoulder, with a very kind encouraging look, as he went away. It was a large assurance to give, and probably Mrs. Hayward would not have said quite so much; but it left Joyce in a state of indescribable emotion, her heart deeply touched, but her mind distracted with the impossibilities of her new position. How was she to know what to do? To avoid giving trouble, to save herself, was not the rule she could abide by when it ended in specking with dust the Colonel’s coat, and bringing him out of his own occupations to help her. Joyce sat down when she had arranged her books, and tried to thread her way through all this maze which bewildered her. She had nothing to do, and she thought she was intended to spend her life here, to sit alone and occupy herself. It was very kindly meant, she was sure, so as to leave her at her ease; and she was glad to have this refuge, not to be always in Mrs. Hayward’s way, sitting stiffly in the drawing-room waiting to be spoken to. Oh yes; she was glad to be here: yet she looked about the room with eyes a little forlorn.
It was a nice little room, with a large window looking out upon the flower-garden, and it was, so far as Joyce knew, very prettily furnished, but without the luxuries and decorations of the other rooms. There were no pictures, but a little standing frame or two on the mantelpiece, no doubt intended for those endless
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 photographs of friends which she had seen in Greta’s room at Bellendean, always the first things taken out of her boxes when her belongings were unpacked. But Joyce had few friends. She had a little rude picture on glass, shut up in a little case, of old Peter and Janet, the old woman in her big bonnet and shawl, her husband, all one broad smile, looking over her shoulder—very dear to Joyce, but not to be exposed on the mantelpiece for Mrs. Hayward’s quick look of criticism. Joyce felt that Greta in a moment would make that room her own. She would bring down her photographs; she would throw down her work, which never was done, with all the pretty silks about. She would spread out her paper and her pens, and the letters she had received and those she had begun to write, upon the table where Joyce’s big old blotting-book lay, and the rosewood desk, closed and looking like an ugly oblong box as it was—long, bare, and miserable; but none of all these things could Joyce do. She had no work, and no photographs of her friends, and no letters, and nothing to do—nothing to do! And was this how she was to spend her life?
She sat there until the bell rang for lunch, saying to herself that it was far better than being in the drawing-room in Mrs. Hayward’s way; and then she went timidly out into the hall, where her father was standing, just come in from some supervision in the garden. ‘I have had a busy morning,’ he said, beaming upon her, ‘and so I suppose have you, my dear; but we’ll soon settle down. Mrs. Hayward——’ here he paused with a little uneasiness, and after a moment resumed—‘your mother—has been very busy too. There is always a great deal to do after one has been away.’
‘Considering that I was only away four days,’ said Mrs. Hayward, coming in from the other side, and leading the way to the dining-room. Joyce could not help feeling stiff and awkward as she followed, and hastily got into her seat before the butler could come behind and push forward the chair. She was a little afraid of him hovering behind, and wondered if he knew.
‘I hope you like your room,’ Mrs. Hayward said. ‘It is small, but I think it is nice; and, Baker, remember to let down the sun-blinds before the afternoon sun gets in. Miss Hayward will not like to find it all in a blaze. That is the worst of a western aspect. Henry, some invitations have come——’
‘Ah!’ said the Colonel, ‘we have more to consider now than we used to
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have, Elizabeth. There is Joyce to be thought of——’
‘Oh,’ Joyce cried, growing very red, ‘I hope you will not think of me!’
‘For some things, of course, we must consider her, Henry,’ said Mrs. Hayward, taking no notice of Joyce’s hurried exclamation. ‘There are nothing but garden-parties all about, and she must go to some of them. It will be the best way of making her known.’
‘You always think of the right thing, my dear,’ the Colonel said.
‘But when it is for dinner, Henry, until people know her, Joyce will not mind, she will stay at home.’
‘I wish,’ said Joyce, with a horrified alarm—‘oh, I wish you would never think of me! I would not like—I could not think, I—I would be afraid to go to parties—I——’
‘My dear,’ said Colonel Hayward, ‘perhaps there may be—dressmakers to think of—or something of that sort.’
‘I think you may trust me to look after that,’ said Mrs. Hayward, with a glance at Baker, who was listening with benignant interest. Joyce had a keen enough feminine sense to know that Baker was not to be taken into the confidence of the family; and accordingly she made no further interruption, but allowed the conversation to go on without attempting to take any part in it. She heard them discuss names which were without any meaning to her, and kept shyly, and, as she felt, stiffly still, endeavouring with all her might to look as if she knew nothing at all about it, as if it did not at all refer to her—which went sadly against her with her step-mother, who was eagerly on the outlook for indications of character, and to whom Joyce’s apparent indifference was an offence—though she would probably have been equally offended had the girl shown too much interest. When Baker left the room, Mrs. Hayward turned to her again.
‘The Colonel was quite right,’ she said; ‘though I didn’t wish to discuss it before the servants. You must want some dresses. You are very nice as you are for indoors, but there is a great deal of dress now worn at garden-parties. And what is called a simple toilet is just the most troublesome of all. For it ha............