enwrapped in such an atmosphere of admiration
and deference, but the artistic sensitive chord in her had been struck,
and vibrated happily.

"Well, only wait till May, and the cowslips in your own fields will make
up to you!" he said, smiling at her. "But now, I have been wondering to
myself in my room 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 bored with them! You shall see what
and as much as you like. You had about a quarter of an hour's talk with
my aunt, did you not?" he asked, in a quite different tone.

So all the time while she and Miss Raeburn had been making acquaintance,
he had known that she was in the house, and he had kept away for his own
purposes! Marcella felt a colour she could not restrain leap into her
cheek.

"Miss Raeburn was very kind," she said, with a return of shyness, which
passed however the next moment by reaction, into her usual daring. "Yes,
she was very kind!--but all the same she doesn't like me--I don't think
she is going to like me--I am not her sort."

"Have you been talking Socialism to her?" he asked her, smiling.

"No, not yet--not yet," she said emphatically. "But I am dreadfully
uncertain--I can't always hold my tongue--I am afraid you will be sorry
you took me up."

"Are you so aggressive? But Aunt Neta is so mild!--she wouldn't hurt a
fly. She mothers every one in the house and out of it. The only people
she is hard upon are the little servant girls, who will wear feathers in
their hats!"

"There!" cried Marcella, indignantly. "Why shouldn't they wear feathers
in their hats? It is their form of beauty--their tapestry!"

"But if one can't have both feathers and boots?" he asked her humbly, a
twinkle in his grey eye. "If one hasn't boots, one may catch a cold and
die of it--which is, after all, worse than going featherless."

"But why _can't_ they have feathers and boots? It is because
you--we--have got too much. You have the tapestry--and--and the
pictures"--she turned and looked round the room--"and this wonderful
house--and the park. Oh, no--I think it is Miss Raeburn has too many
feathers!"

"Perhaps it is," he admitted, in a different tone, his look changing and
saddening as though some habitual struggle of thought were recalled to
him. "You see I am in a difficulty. I want to show you our feathers. I
think they would please you--and you make me a