Marcella

Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor's jacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside.

d her head nervously erect, was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who had resumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herself presently after a few

n kind; she had never been capable, and probably never would be capable, of quarrelling with either of them on any subject whatever. At the same time she had her rights with them. She was at any rate their natural guardian in those matters, relating to womankind, w

the first place, as we know, the mistress of Maxwell Court had left Mellor and its new occupants unvisited; she had plainly understood it to be her brother's wish that she should do so. How, indeed, could you know the women without knowing Richard Boyce? which, according to Lord Maxwell, was impossible. And now it was Lord Maxwell who had suggested not only that after all it would be kind to call upon the poor things, who were heavily weighted enough already with Dick Boyce fo

rn's position, and with Miss Raeburn's general interest in her kind, could have been ignorant for any appreciable number of days after the Boyces' arrival at Mellor that they possessed a handsome daughter, of whom the Hardens in particular gave striking but, as Miss Raeburn privately thought, by no means wholly attractive accounts. And now, after all these somewhat agitating prelimina

ner compelled. Well-what blame? What was to prevent her from doing the same thing again to-morrow? Her conscience was absolutely clear. If they were not ready to meet her in the same sp

f the class to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people were strange to her. She brought her artist's and student's eyes to look at them with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them. At the same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid room in which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine p

oo must come in. But they should not be vulgarly measured. She did not believe in class or wealth-not at all. Only-as her mother had told

likes, her accomplishments, her friends, her opinions of Mellor and the neighbourhood, which this knitting lady beside h

late, but the roads are abominable, and those horses Edward has just given me have to be taken such tiresome

of it, my dear," said M

Miss Boyce-Lad

ort, inclined to be stout, and to a certain gay profusion in her attire. Her cap was made of a bright silk handkerchief edged with lace; round her neck were hung a number of small trinkets on various gold chains; she abounded t

idly erect; the very dark eyes, under the snowy and abundant hair, had a trick of absent staring; in certain aspects the whole figure had a tragic, nay, formidable dignity, from which one expected, and sometimes got, the tone and gesture of tragic

ong?" the new-comer asked, in a deep con

father and mother hav

think it a very in

odd habit Lady Winterbourne had of fixing her eyes upon a pers

fter a pause to Miss Raeburn, "since that summer-you remember tha

t. Lady Winterbourne grew a

r, Miss Boyce-I was much away from h

evision. The only time she had ever seen Mrs. Boyce had been in court, on the last day of the famous trial in which Richard Boyce was concerned, when she had made out the wife sitting closely veiled a

said Miss Raeburn, bending over the heel of her stocking. "

rbourne's tragic eyes were on

nd see me," she said at

ce

ed though so deep, and Marcella l

d, all her face meltin

ere, but I will come,

uickly-"come to tea, and I will drive you back. Mr. Ra

k, were not to be resisted. Marcella laughed out, and both ladie

I have hardly talked ab

erbourne, smiling suddenly; "so I can

aeburn crossed the room, greeted Lady Winterbo

us, didn't you," said

was a gre

a boy, and was, moreover, a sort of co

us s

nd me, and had a weakness that way, Lady Wi

, bluntly-"at least I read a great deal, but I har

ing so quickly?" said Miss

to be always a hundred things tearing one

"When one is old one accepts one's limitations. When I was twenty I never thoug

s, laughing at her, as one does at an old friend. "Why, you are younger than any of us!

her-at the alert brightness in the man's strong and quiet face as he sat stooping forward, with his hands upon his knees

ve you heard what a monstrosity Alice has produced this la

old friends fell into a gossip on the subject of Lady Winterbour

weather and her walk from Mellor. "I think you would admire it, and I am afraid my grandfather will be a few minutes yet. He ho

end of the room where a famous piece of Italian Renaiss

er eyes filling with delight. "Wha

it-laden trees and wreathed about with roses. Both colour and subject were of fairyland. The golds and browns and pinks of it, the greens and ivory whites

joyed her

light since I was a child, when my mother first routed it out of a garret.

ted out of them! We walked two and two along the straight roads, and I found one here and one there-but such a beggarly, wretched few, for all one's trouble. I used to hate the hard dry soil, and console myself by imagining countries where the flowers grew like this-yes, just like this,

erself beside him, enwrapped in such an atmosphere of admiration and deference

upstairs what you would like to see. There are a good many treasures in this house, and you will care for them, because you are an artist. But you shall not be bor

e had known that she was in the house, and he had kept away for his own pu

the next moment by reaction, into her usual daring. "Yes, she was very kind!-but all

g Socialism to her?"

I am dreadfully uncertain-I can't always hold my to

She mothers every one in the house and out of it. The only people she is ha

shouldn't they wear feathers in their hats?

, a twinkle in his grey eye. "If one hasn't boots, one may catch a c

u have the tapestry-and-and the pictures"-she turned and looked round the room-"and thi

some habitual struggle of thought were recalled to him. "You see I am in a difficulty. I wa

when I told you how I liked the

s looked round with a start-

ld man's somewhat formal approach, the sudden kindle in the blue eyes which marked the first effect of Marcella's form and presence,

r," said Lord Maxwell, when they were all seated at lunch, Marcella on his l

cella, rather bluntly, "except what I have got out

conversation about the Boyce monuments in Mellor church led to a discussion of the part played by the different local families in the Civil Wars, in which it seemed to Aldous that his grandfather tried in various

ery point, and tone, and gesture with some inner ideal of what a Raeburn's wife should be. How dream-like the whole scene was to Aldous, yet how exquisitely real! The room, with its carved and gilt cedar-wood panels, its Vandykes, its tall windows opening on the park, the autumn sun flooding the gold and purple fruit on the table, and sparkling on the glass and silver, the figures of

nxiety, incredulity. Marcella, sitting there on his own ground, after all his planning, seemed to him not nearer, but further from him. She was terribly on her dignity! Where was all t

e badness of the harvest, the low prices of everything, the conseq

ut pauperising them, I mean. To give money is easy enough. Our grandfathers would have

tales one heard, and the faces one saw!-though we seemed to be always giving. And in the mi

r poor people up in Russia, isn't it?-or Hudson's Bay?-badly off. One has, to think of th

great-aunt to work out her own economics. And, anyway, she saw that he was

sfy everybody. And our grandmothers were very good women. I don't know why we, who give ourselves

e eyes. Miss Raeburn, looking round, was

eard tales of Miss Boyce's opinions!" said Lord Maxwell, smiling at

she looked up with a start. She was perfectly conscious of him, as both the great magnate on his native heath, an

ve you heard?"

y, waiving her question. "We can't afford

sharp dry look at Miss Boyce, which e

ully. "We Socialists don't fight for either politica

lf a Socialist? A r

a man who after a morning of hard work thinks

lowly, looking at him. "At least I

e said laughing. "Isn't that

ience make me a Socialist. It's only one's wretched love for one's own little luxuries and precedences-the worst part of

to be 'hatched over again and hatched diffe

don poor were bad enough; the country poor seem to me worse! How can any one believe that

certainly was no wonder that Aldous

f all property were divided to-morrow the force of natural inequality woul

alk eagerly and cleverly, showing a very fair training in the catch words of the school, and a good memory-as one uncomfortable person at the table so

e Statute of Labourers, the Law of Settlement, the New Poor Law, and other great matters, all in the same quick flow of glancing, picturesque speech, and all with the same utter oblivion-

and so divert the conversation. But Marcella was soon too excited to be managed; and she ha

are of the same opinion as a good man whose book I took up yesterday: 'The landlords of England have always shown a mean an

rule had made the prosp

ars, looked at his grand

less. Lady Winterbourne

ot of red on e

avered, looked across at

y-I hate myself for it. Very often when anybody talks to me on the other side, I am almost as much persuaded as I am by the Socialists: t

Lord Maxwell,

rights when they come to be old, nothing to look to but charity, for which we, who have everything, expect them to be grateful; and when I know that every one of them has done more useful work in a year of their life than I shall ever do in the whole of mine, then I

he humour of his sister's dismay. Well! this was a forcible young woman: was Aldous the kin

nterbourne's dee

Miss Boyce; but I agree with you. I may sa

to her, gratef

re Edward came to the title, and I did not at all like it-not at all. And I don't wish my daughters to marry poor men; and what I should do without a maid or a carriage when I wanted it, I cannot imagin

your station road," said Lord Maxwell, laughin

evening, and a man passed her, a labourer who was a little drunk, and who did not take off his hat to her. She stopped, made her men get down and had him put in the stocks there and then-the old stocks were still standing on the village green. Then she drove home to her dinner, and said her prayers no doubt that night with more consciousness than usual of having done her dut

not the landowners or the capitalists-who will put it down. It will be the hundreds and thousands of people with something to lose-a few pounds in a joint-stock mill, a house of their own built through a co-operative

one rejoice in it? How can any one wish that the present state of things should go on? Oh! the horrors one sees in London. A

her brother was still peeling his pear, and no one else m

ing. I stopped at Corbett's farm a minute or two on the way home, and met Westall at the gate coming out. He says he and his men are being harried to death round about Tudley End by a gang of men that come, he thinks, from Oxford, a driving ga

, in dismay. "Oh no, i

ooked at her i

id your father will find that Mel

ieve it a bit! But if it were true-oh! they have been in such straits-they were out of work most of last winter; they are out of work now, No one could grudge them. I told you about them, didn't I?" she said,

rable sense of calamity, could have beaten him for what she read

can find him work: I am just now planning improvements at the north end of the park.

hint, Miss Boyce, and nobody will rake up bygones. There is nothing I

family are in real distress there are plenty of pe

cried Marcella,

ess, after my morning with the lunatics, I am half inclined, like Horace Walpole, to think everything seriou