e nothing but a step backwards."

Mrs. Boyce lifted her eyebrows.

"That's unlucky. He tells me it is likely to be his chief work in the
new Parliament. Isn't it, on the whole, probable that he knows more
about the country than you do, Marcella?"

Marcella sat up with sudden energy and gathered her walking things
together.

"It isn't knowledge that's the question, mamma; it's the principle of
the thing. I mayn't know anything, but the people whom I follow know.
There are the two sides of thought--the two ways of looking at things. I
warned Aldous when he asked me to marry him which I belonged to. And he
accepted it."

Mrs. Boyce's thin fine mouth curled a little.

"So you suppose that Aldous had his wits about him on that great
occasion as much as you had?"

Marcella first started, then quivered with nervous indignation.

"Mother," she said, "I can't bear it. It's not the first time that you
have talked as though I had taken some unfair advantage--made an
unworthy bargain. It is too hard too. Other people may think what they
like, but that you--"

Her voice failed her, and the tears came into her eyes. She was tired
and over-excited, and the contrast between the atmosphere of flattery
and consideration which surrounded her in Aldous's company, in the
village, or at the Winterbournes, and this tone which her mother so
often took with her when they were alone, was at the moment hardly to be
endured.

Mrs. Boyce looked up more gravely.

"You misunderstand me, my dear," she said quietly. "I allow myself to
wonder at you a little, but I think no hard things of you ever. I
believe you like Aldous."

"Really, mamma!" cried Marcella, half hysterically.

Mrs. Boyce had by now rolled up her work and shut her workbasket.

"If you are going to take off your things," she said, "please tell
William that there will be six or seven at tea. You said, I think, that
Mr. Raeburn was going to bring Mr. Hallin?"

"Yes, and Frank Leven is coming. When will Mr. Wharton be here?"

"Oh, in ten minutes or so, if his train is punctual. I hear your father
just coming in."

Marcella went away, and Mrs. Boyce was left a few minutes alone. Her
thin hands lay idle a moment on her lap, and leaning towards the window
beside her, she looked out an instant into the snowy twilight. Her mind
was full of its usual calm scorn for those--her daughter included--who
supposed that the human lot was to be mended by a rise in weekly wages,
or