e inspired in Felix at that moment was mingled with a
kind of pity. He said impressively:

"Do you know the forces you are up against? Have you looked into the
unfathomable heart of this trouble? Understood the tug of the towns, the
call of money to money; grasped the destructive restlessness of modern
life; the abysmal selfishness of people when you threaten their
interests; the age-long apathy of those you want to help? Have you
grasped all these?"

"And more!"

Felix held out his hand. "Then," he said, "you are truly brave!"

She shook her head.

"It got bitten into me very young. I was brought up in the Highlands
among the crofters in their worst days. In some ways the people here are
not so badly off, but they're still slaves."

"Except that they can go to Canada if they want, and save old England."

She flushed. "I hate irony."

Felix looked at her with ever-increasing interest; she certainly was of
the kind that could be relied on to make trouble.

"Ah!" he murmured. "Don't forget that when we can no longer smile we can
only swell and burst. It IS some consolation to reflect that by the time
we've determined to do something really effectual for the ploughmen of
England there'll be no ploughmen left!"

"I cannot smile at that."

And, studying her face, Felix thought, 'You're right there! You'll get
no help from humor.' . . .

Early that afternoon, with Nedda between them, Felix and his nephew were
speeding toward Transham.

The little town--a hamlet when Edmund Moreton dropped the E from his name
and put up the works which Stanley had so much enlarged--had monopolized
by now the hill on which it stood. Living entirely on its ploughs, it
yet had but little of the true look of a British factory town, having
been for the most part built since ideas came into fashion. With its red
roofs and chimneys, it was only moderately ugly, and here and there an
old white, timbered house still testified to the fact that it had once
been country. On this fine Sunday afternoon the population were in the
streets, and presented all that long narrow-headedness, that twist and
distortion of feature, that perfect absence of beauty in face, figure,
and dress, which is the glory of the Briton who has been for three
generations in a town. 'And my great-grandfather'--thought Felix--'did
all this! God rest his soul!'

At a rather new church on the very top they halted, and went in to
inspect the Morton memor