old 'un for
astin'."

Marcella coloured.

"Well, I've got it to think about, Mrs. Jellison. We must have a meeting
in the village and talk it over one of these days."

The old woman nodded in a shrewd silence, and watched them depart.

"Wull, I reckon Jimmy Gedge ull lasst my time," she said to herself with
a chuckle.

* * * * *

If Mrs. Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistress
of Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settled
generations ago by "the Lord and natur'," Marcella certainly was in no
mood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her return
scanning everything about her--the slatternly girls plaiting on the
doorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various
"publics," the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps to
her--with a moody and passionate eye.

"Mary!" she broke out as they neared the Rectory, "I shall be
twenty-four directly. How much harm do you think I shall have done here
by the time I am sixty-four?"

Mary laughed at her, and tried to cheer her. But Marcella was in the
depths of self-disgust.

"What is wanted, really wanted," she said with intensity, "is not _my_
help, but _their_ growth. How can I make them _take for
themselves_--take, roughly and selfishly even, if they will only take!
As for my giving, what relation has it to anything real or lasting?"

Mary was scandalised.

"I declare you are as bad as Mr. Craven," she said. "He told Charles
yesterday that the curtseys of the old women in the village to him and
Charles--women old enough to be their grandmothers--sickened him of the
whole place, and that he should regard it as the chief object of his
work here to make such things impossible in the future. Or perhaps
you're still of Mr.--Mr. Wharton's opinion--you'll be expecting Charles
and me to give up charity. But it's no good, my dear. We're not
'advanced,' and we never shall be."

At the mention of Wharton Marcella threw her proud head back; wave after
wave of changing expression passed over the face.

"I often remember the things Mr. Wharton said in this village," she said
at last. "There was life and salt and power in many of them. It's not
what he said, but what he was, that one wants to forget."

They parted presently, and Marcella went heavily home. The rising of the
spring, the breath of the April air, had never yet been sad and
oppressive to her as they w