that suffering has any necessary dependence on the amount of
commodities of which a man disposes. What hardship is there in starving
and scrubbing and toiling? Had she ever seen a labourer's wife scrubbing
her cottage floor without envy, without moral thirst? Is it these things
that kill, or any of the great simple griefs and burdens? Doth man live
by bread alone? The whole language of social and charitable enthusiasm
often raised in her a kind of exasperation.

So Marcella would be rich, excessively rich, even now. Outside the
amount settled upon her, the figures of Aldous Raeburn's present income,
irrespective of the inheritance which would come to him on his
grandfather's death, were a good deal beyond what even Mr. Boyce--upon
whom the daily spectacle of the Maxwell wealth exercised a certain
angering effect--had supposed.

Mrs. Boyce had received the news of the engagement with astonishment,
but her after-acceptance of the situation had been marked by all her
usual philosophy. Probably behind the philosophy there was much secret
relief. Marcella was provided for. Not the fondest or most contriving
mother could have done more for her than she had at one stroke done for
herself. During the early autumn Mrs. Boyce had experienced some moments
of sharp prevision as to what her future relations might be towards this
strong and restless daughter, so determined to conquer a world her
mother had renounced. Now all was clear, and a very shrewd observer
could allow her mind to play freely with the ironies of the situation.

As to Aldous Raeburn, she had barely spoken to him before the day when
Marcella announced the engagement, and the lover a few hours later had
claimed her daughter at the mother's hands with an emotion to which Mrs.
Boyce found her usual difficulty in responding. She had done her best,
however, to be gracious and to mask her surprise that he should have
proposed, that Lord Maxwell should have consented, and that Marcella
should have so lightly fallen a victim. One surprise, however, had to be
confessed, at least to herself. After her interview with her future
son-in-law, Mrs. Boyce realised that for the first time for fifteen
years she was likely to admit a new friend. The impression made upon him
by her own singular personality had translated itself in feelings and
language which, against her will as it were, established an
understanding, an affinity. That she had involuntarily aroused in him
the profou