Marcella

little imp, but a fast-maturing and in some ways remarkable girl, with much of the woman in her alre

l. Marcella examined it and fingered it with an excited mixture of feelings. First of all there was the sore and swelling bitterness that she should owe such things to the kindness of the French governess, whereas finery for the occasion had been freely sent to all the other girls from "home." She very nearly turned her back upon the bed and its pretty burden. But then the mere snowy whiteness of the muslin and freshness of the ribbons, a

now almost a stranger, received him demurely, making no confidences, and took him over the house and gardens. When he wa

aming; "tell mamma I want a 'fringe.' Ev

s appearance. Three days later, by her mother's permission, Marcella was taken to the hairdresser at Marswell by Mademoiselle Rénier, returned in all t

but must in the end be sure. If the young man died and he outlived Robert, Mellor Park would be his; they would and must return, in spite of certain obstacles, to their natural rank in society, and Marcella must of course be produced as his daughter and heiress. When his wife repulsed him, he went to his eldest sister, an old maid with a small income of her own, who happened to be staying with them, and was the only member of his family with whom he was now on terms. She was struck with his remarks, which bore on family pride, a commodity not always to be reckoned on in the Boyces, but wh

y, was transferred from Cliff House to the charge of a lady who managed a small but mu

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figure of her schoolmistress, Miss Pemberton; and with one emotion only-a passion, an adoration, akin to that she had lavished on the Ellertons, but now much more expressive and mature. A tall slender woman with brown, grey-besprinkled hair falling in light curls after the fashion of our grandmothers on either cheek, and braided into a classic knot behind-the face of a saint, an enthusiast-eyes overflowing with feeling above a thin firm mouth-the mouth of the obstinate saint, yet sweet also: this delicate significant picture was stamped on Marcella's heart. What tremors of fear and joy could she not remember in connection with it? what night-vigils when a tired girl kept herself through long hours awake that she might see at last the door open and a figure with a night-lamp standing an instant in the doorway?-for Miss Pemberton, who slept little and read late, never went to rest without

rs with Miss Pemberton without a shiver of agitation. Yet now she never saw her. It was two years since they parted; the school was broken up; her idol had gone to India to

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timulus of Mellor and its novelty, Marcella must needs think, too, of her London life, of all that it had opened to h

there had been other and more permanent reasons why her parents felt her presence with them a burden. At any rate, when the moment came for her to leave Miss Pemberton, her mother wrote from abroad that, as Marcella had of late shown decided aptitude both for music and painting, it would be well that she should culti

fts so far as to become at least a very intelligent, eager, and confident critic of the art of other people-which is much. But though art stirred and trained her, gave her new horizons and new standards, it

d at work all day, were members of a rising Socialist society, and spent their evenings almost entirely on various forms of social effort and Socialist propaganda. They seemed to Marcella's young eyes absolutely sincere and quite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and the charities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could be any "right" in private property or private weal

d the books of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love and dreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, the herald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shall enjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her t

h men"-these were the only articles of his scanty creed, but they were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, which our modern religion seldom commands. His influence made Marcella a rent-collector under a lady friend of his in the East End; because of it, she worked herself beyond her strength in a joint attempt made by some member

It revived in Marcella ambitions, instincts and tastes wholly different from those of her companions, but natural to her b

ronically one day, when he had just discovered her with the

" she asked

go you were all given to causes not your own; now, how long will it take y

pretty things and old associations, I must give up all my convictions? Shall I find no poor at Mello

le in his dark, sunken eyes, and

ye at the station, she be

r you want us, we are there. If you write, we will answer.

ed her hand

hem all that she was renounced. Louis and Edith spoke with affection and regret. As to Anthony, from the moment that he set eyes upon the maid sent to

ay. And her sense of their unwarrantable injustice kept her tense and silent till she was roused to a

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overished parents. There had been compensations all through-and were not the great passion of her Solesby days, together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enough to give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will be observed that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has been said of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has but followed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and sl

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called to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she went thoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of the beautiful Jacobean

go downst