always told me in London I was the prey of the last speaker. But it
can't make any difference to one's _feeling_: nothing touches that."

She turned to Lord Maxwell, half appealing--

"It is when I go down from our house to the village; when I see the
places the people live in; when one is comfortable in the carriage, and
one passes some woman in the rain, ragged and dirty and tired, trudging
back from her work; when one realises that they have no _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 feel that the whole state of
things is _somehow_ wrong and topsy-turvy and _wicked_." Her voice rose
a little, every emphasis grew more passionate. "And if I don't do
something--the little such a person as I can--to alter it before I die,
I might as well never have lived."

Everybody at table started. Lord Maxwell looked at Miss Raeburn, his
mouth twitching over the humour of his sister's dismay. Well! this was a
forcible young woman: was Aldous the kind of man to be able to deal
conveniently with such eyes, such emotions, such a personality?

Suddenly Lady Winterbourne's deep voice broke in:

"I never could say it half so well as that, Miss Boyce; but I agree with
you. I may say that I have agreed with you all my life."

The girl turned to her, grateful and quivering.

"At the same time," said Lady Winterbourne, relapsing with a long breath
from tragic emphasis into a fluttering indecision equally
characteristic, "as you say, one is inconsistent. I was poor once,
before 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 imagine.
Edward makes the most of these things. He tells me I have to choose
between things as they are, and a graduated income tax which would leave
nobody--not even the richest--more than four hundred a year."

"Just enough, for one of those little houses on your station road,"
said Lord Maxwell, laughing at her. "I think you might still have a
maid."

"There, you laugh," said Lady Winterbourne, vehemently: "the men do. But
I tell you it is no laughing matter to feel that your _heart_ and
_conscience_ have gone over to the enemy. You want to