"Cross, Joan? No, I'm never cross with anybody but myself. I couldn't be
cross with my kind little friend if I tried to be."

He shook hands; it was the first occasion that he had done so, and she
blushed. His hand was cold and thin, and she heard one of the bones in it
give a little crack as he held her palm within his own for the briefest
space of time. Then, as usual, the moment after he had said "good-by," he
appeared to become absolutely unconscious of her presence, and returned to
his picture.

Joan's mind dwelt much upon the artist after she had departed, and every
train of reflection came back to the last words Barron spoke that morning.
He had called her his kind little friend. It was very wonderful, Joan
thought, and a statement not to be explained at all. Her stepmother's voice
cut these pleasant memories sharply, and she returned home to find that
Uncle Chirgwin had already arrived--a fact his old gray horse, tethered in
the orchard, and his two-wheeled market cart, drawn up in the side-lane,
testified to before Mrs. Tregenza announced it.

"Out again, of coorse, just because you knawed I was to be drove off my
blessed legs to-day. I'll tell your faither of 'e, so I will. Gals like you
did ought to be chained 'longside theer work till 'tis done."

Uncle Chirgwin sat by the fireside with a placid if bored expression on his
round face. His hands were folded on his stomach; his short legs were stuck
out before him; his head was quite bald, his color high, his gray eyes
weak, though they had some laughter hidden in them. His double chin was
shaved, but a very white bristle of stubbly whisker surrounded it and
ascended to where all that remained of his hair stuck, like two patches of
cotton wool, above his ears. The old man wore a suit of gray tweed and