and Mrs. Brandon did not appear to think very often of any one except the
Archdeacon. Falk, Joan's brother, now at Oxford, when he was at home had
other things to do than consider Joan. She had gone, ever since she was
twelve, to the Polchester High School for Girls, and there she was
popular, and might have made many friends, had it not been that she could
not invite her companions to her home. Her father did not like "noise in
the house." She had been Captain of the Hockey team; the small girls in
the school had all adored her. She had left the place six months ago and
had come home to "help her mother." She had had, in honest fact, six
months' loneliness, although no one knew that except herself. Her mother
had not wanted her help. There had been nothing for her to do, and she had
felt herself too young to venture into the company of older girls in the
town. She had been rather "blue" and had looked back on Seafield House,
the High School, with longing, and then suddenly, one morning, for no very
clear reason she had taken a new view of life. Everything seemed
delightful and even thrilling, commonplace things that she had known all
her days, the High Street, keeping her rooms tidy, spending or saving the
minute monthly allowance, the Cathedral, the river. She was all in a
moment aware that something very delightful would shortly occur. What it
was she did not know, and she laughed at herself for imagining that
anything extraordinary could ever happen to any one so commonplace as
herself, but there the strange feeling was and it would not go away.

To-day, as always when her father was there, she came in very quietly, sat
down near her mother, saw that she made no sort of interruption to the
Archdeacon's flow of conversation. She found that he was in a good humour
to-day, and she was glad of that because it would please her mother. She
herself had a great interest in all that he said. She thought him a most
wonderful man, and secretly was swollen with pride that she was his
daughter. It did not hurt her at all that he never took any notice of her.