Maryllia stood for a moment irresolute.  Why had he gone away?  Her brows met in a little puckered line of puzzled wonder.

“He be gone to see the Bishop,”—­pursued Josey, watching her tenderly with his old dim eyes,—­it was like reading a love-story to see the faint colour flushing those soft round cheeks of hers, and the tremulous quiver of that sweet sensitive mouth—­“Church business, likely.  But never you mind, my beauty!—­he’ll be ’ere to preach, please the Lord, on Sunday.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Maryllia, quickly recovering herself—­“Only I shan’t be here, you see—­and—­and I had intended to explain something to him—­however, it doesn’t matter!  I can write all I wanted to say.  Good-bye, Josey!  Give my love to Ipsie!”

“Good-bye, my beauty!” returned Josey, with emphatic earnestness—­ “An’ God bless ye an’ make all the rough places smooth for ye!  You’ll find us all ‘ere, lovin’ an’ true, whenever ye comes, mornin’, noon or night—­the village ain’t the world, but you’ve got round it, my dearie—­you’ve got round it!”

And in the deep midnight when the church chimes rang the hour, and the moon poured a pearly shower of luminance over the hushed woodland and silently winding river, Josey lay broad awake, resignedly conscious of his extreme age, and thinking soberly of the beginning and end of life,—­the dawn and fruition of love,—­the wonderful, beautiful, complex labyrinth of experience through which every human soul is guided from one mystic turn to another of mingled joy and sorrow by that supreme Wisdom, Whom, though we cannot see, we trust,—­and feeling the near close of his own long life-journey, he folded his withered hands and prayed aloud: 

“For all Thy childern, O Lord God, that ’ave gone by the last milestone on the road an’ are growin’ footsore an’ weary, let there be Thy peace which passeth all understandin’!—­but for Squire’s gel with the little lonely heart of ‘er beatin’ like the wings of a bird that wants a nest, let there be Love!”

XXVI

Next day at Badsworth Hall, a stately luncheon was in progress.  Luncheon, or indeed any meal, partaken of under the rolling and excitable eye of Sir Morton Pippitt, was always a function fraught with considerable embarrassment to any guests who might happen to be present, being frequently assisted by the Shakespearean stage direction ‘alarums and excursions.’  With Sir Morton at the head of the table, and the acid personality of his daughter Miss Tabitha at the foot, there was very little chance of more than merely monosyllabic conversation, while any idea of merriment, geniality or social interchange of thought, withered in conception and never came to birth.  The attention of both host and hostess was chiefly concentrated on the actual or possible delinquencies of the servants in attendance—­and what with Sir Morton’s fierce nods and becks to unhappy footmen, and Miss