ful listlessness, were tremulous high spirits and feverish fits of gayety.
There came a day, however, when Joan gained a clue to the meaning of this change, though never from her first recognition of it until the end did she comprehend it fully. Perhaps she was wholly unconscious of what narrower natures experience. Then, too, she had little opportunity for hearing gossip. She had no visitors, and she was kept much at home with the child, who was not healthy, and who, during the summer months, was constantly feeble and ailing. Grace, hearing nothing more after the first hint of suspicion, was so far relieved that he thought it best to spare Joan the pain of being stung by it.
But there came a piece of news to Joan that troubled her.
"There's a young sprig o' one o' th' managers stayin' a' th' 'Queen's Arms,'" remarked a pit woman one morning. "He's a foine young chap, too—dresses up loike a tailor's dummy, an' looks as if he'd stepped reet square out o' a bandbox. He's a son o' owd Landsell's."
Joan stopped a moment at her work.
"Are yo' sure o' that?" she asked, anxiously.
"Sure he's Mester Landsell's son? Aye, to be sure it's him. My mester towd me hissen."
This was Liz's trouble, then.
At noon Joan went home full of self-reproach because sometimes her patience had failed her. Liz looked up with traces of tears in her eyes, when Joan came in. Joan did not hesitate. She only thought of giving her comfort. She went and sat down in a chair near by—she drew the curly head down upon her lap, and laid her hand on it caressingly.
