Marcella

e sent to the Court, either in the carriage or under the escort of a maid who could bring her back. Marcella found her mother inclined to insist punctiliously

n to the village. She was teeming with plans for her new kingdom, and could not keep herself out of it. And an entry in one of the loca

erceive behind her the forms of several other persons filling up th

lp me wi' the washin' while I finished my score of plait for the woman who takes 'em into town to-morrow. And there's old Patton an' his wife-you know 'em, miss?-them as lives in the parish houses top o' the common. He's walked out a few steps to-day. It's not often he's able, and when

ng Mrs. Hurd start; "she couldn't be long hereabouts without makkin' e?as

ied by the grey circles under the eyes and the pinched sharpness of the features. The upper lip, which was pretty and childish, was raised a little over the teeth; the whole expression of the slightly open mouth was unusually soft and sensiti

her like figures in poetry or drama. She saw them with the eye of the imagination through a medium provided by Socialist discussion, or

hese apples for your grandson. Perhaps you'll take them, now you're here. They're q

ut 'em down, miss. I dare say he'll eat 'em. He eats most things, and don't want no d

iture left in the tiny cottage on which it was possible to sit, and squeezing herself into a corner by the fire, whence

give up her one wooden arm-chair, in which he was established, to Miss Boyce. But he, being old, de

on, cheerfully. "Poor old Patton, he do get slow on his legs, don't you

g not much over seventy, and energetic accordingly. Mrs. Jellison passed for

to mind getting old,

, smilin

im grace, and the splendour of her large black hat and feathers. The new squire's daughter had so far taken them by surprise. Some

I've never found you get forrarder wi' snarlin' over what you can't help. And there's mercies.

hatically. Mar

him, Mrs. Jellison, and look

up, and see for yoursen. Fower year-an' fire upstairs, an' fire downstairs, an' fire all night, an' s

eless rakish air. Her youth of long ago-a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, e

Mrs. Brunt, with a sigh, "though she took a deal mo

n their domestic toils. Her last remaining daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor

though," she said gently,

terrible! 'Mother, ain't it ten o'clock?-mother, look at the clock, do, mother-ain't it time for my stuff, mother-oh, I do hope it is.' That was her stuff, miss, to make her sleep. And w

runt put her han

Jellison, calmly. "A body must get through wi' it when it's t

ily, "that fretted about her dart

table eagerness, seldom, however, expressed in words. A sudden passion in the faded blue eyes; a quick spot of red in his old cheeks; these Marcella had often noticed in him, as though the flame of some inner furnace leapt. He had been a Radical and a rebel once in old rick-burning days, long before he lost the power in his limbs and came

sical ills-to the birth. The pathetic silence of age enwrapped him more and more. Still he could

th Isabella. I won't go for to say I wasn't orkard, for I was. She should ha' used me to 't before, if she wor took that way. She and I had just settled down

ame gentle melancholy. "She married a stiddy man as 'ull kee

n the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi'en him his uniform, and made him full keeper. A nassty, domineerin' sort, I calls him. He's allus makin

and was now one of Lord Maxwell's keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some little way out of the village. Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughter for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her son-in-law; but thei

. At the mention of Westall, she got up ha

ile had been si

n, Mrs. Jellison?" she said, looking up. "Is there

her hands paused an instant in their work. The eyes of all the old people-of Patton and his wife, of Mrs. Jellison

e a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood. I believe it does here-and I should like to know more about it. I want to make up my mind what to think. Of course, my father has got his land and his own opinions.

ton, as though she would have liked to poke him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him o

on't hear talk o' things now like as we did when we were

ellison, he thought, must admit that he knew a thing

ed him with her

be when you were young. Was the preserving very strict about here? Were there often fights, with the keepers-long

ind of compulsion on him; perhaps, too, the pretty courtesy of her manner. He cleared his throat agai

Perhaps he see 'em when ee's going to the wood with a wood cart-or he cooms across 'em in the turnips-wounded birds, you understan', miss, perhaps the day after the gentry 'as been bangin' at 'em all day. An' ee don't see, not for the life of '

t there's a good deal of game given away in these parts, isn't there? I know Lord Maxwell does

een a disused clock. He began to feel a whirr among

's more in it nor that, miss. Ee's allus in the fields, that's where it is-ee can't help seein' the hares and the rabbits a-comin' in and out o' the woods, if it were iver so. Ee knows ivery run ov ivery one on 'em; if a hare's started furthest corner o' t' field, he can tell yer whar she'll git in by, because he's al

hook more and more visibly. Bygone

he whole wretched system. It spoils those who've got, and those who haven't got. And there'll be n

ons. Then, stooping forward with one of her wild movements, she caught Marcella's a

flushed a

else to Lord Maxwell," she said proudly

t. The quality don't trouble you at 'lection times. This yoong man, Muster Wharton, as is goin' round so free, promisin' yer the sun out o' the sky, iv yer'll only vote for 'im,

n had suddenly run down, and ther

young woman talking, as she did, when there were three summonses as he, Patton, heard tell, just taken out by the sanitary inspector against Mr. Boyce for bad cottages? And not a farthing given away in the village neither, except perhaps the bits of food that the young lady herself brought down to the village now and then, for which no one, in truth, felt any cause to be particularly grateful. Besides, what did she mean by asking questions about the poaching? Old Patton knew as well as anybody else in the village,

Jellison. "Thinkin' won't come atwixt me and the parish

t heaved with i

London, the persons I was with talked and thought of it all day. Some day, whenever the people choose-for they've got the power now they've got the vote-there'll be land for everybody, and in every village there'll be a council to manage things, and the labourer will count for just as much as the squire and the parson,

situation had something foreseen and dramatic in it. She saw herself, as the preacher, sitting on her stool beside the poor grate-she realised as a spectator the figures of the women and the old man played on by the firelight-the white, bare, damp-stained walls of the cottage, and

imself what she thought it right to do and say in this miserable village. Her soul challenged him, longed to provoke him! Well, she was soon to me

oursing through Marcella's head, was slowly revolving wha

round his dry lips and delive

tch me! Them as have got 'ull keep"-he let his stick sharply down on the floor-"an' them as 'a

"The young lady speaks beautiful, just like a book she do. An' she's likely to know a deal better nor poor persons like you and me. All I kin say is,-if there's goin' to be dividin' u

twitching, and her eyes shining as though a host of entertaining notions were trooping through her-which, h

n this village, haven't you,

, she wor born just a house or two further along, an

of. She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a

son, pointing to Mrs. Patton, "as

n her tone of sympathetic interest. "The

There was eighteen the Rector paid for, and eighteen

she sighed again like one we

did you te

sn't as high as it is now, you see, miss," and a delicate flush dawned on the old cheek as Mrs.

tell yer, miss. When she couldn't tell 'em herself she'd never own up to it. 'Say Jerusalem, my dear, and pass on.' That's what she'd say, she would, sure's as you're alive!

tton, blushing and mildly defending hers

hool to another woman, as lived up Shephe

yes began already t

ercy Moss, an' a goodish deal of trouble you'd use to

s, began to rock herself gently up a

nobody like her for keepin' school, not in their eyes-till one midsummer-she-well she-I don't want to say nothink onpleasant-but she transgressed,"

Marcella, innocently. "

s stick, shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till she must needs

bin dead and gone these forty year-married and buried mos' respeckable-it 'ud be a burning shame to bring up tales agen her now. Them as tittle-tattles abo

up suddenly with a fier

iver meant no offence,"

n, with energy. "If you've got soomthink agen me,

road dialect, as she got more and more excited, and quite as ready to break her wit on Marcella as on anybody else. As for the others, most of them had known little else for weeks than alternations of toil and sickness; they were as much amused

hand, and her full glowing eyes turned upon the littl

wed two shillings a week by two labourer sons, and earned sixpence a week-about-by continuous work at "the plait." Her husband had been run over by a farm cart and killed; up to the time of his death his earnings averaged about twenty-eight pounds a year. Much the same with the Pattons. They had lost eight children out of ten, an

on in the room had drunk, and drunk deep. Yet here in this autumn twilight, they laughed and chattered, and joked-weird, wrinkled children, enjoying an hour's rough play in a clearing of the storm! Dependent from birth to death on sq

soon have swept them all into unremembered graves. But the young men and women, the children, were they too to grow up, and grow old like these-the same