st have struck
any one with an observant eye, as she sat thus, thrown into beautiful
light and shade by the blaze of the wood fire, was the massiveness of
the head compared with the nervous delicacy of much of the face, the
thinness of the wrist, and of the long and slender foot raised on the
fender. It was perhaps the great thickness and full wave of the hair
which gave the head its breadth; but the effect was singular, and would
have been heavy but for the glow of the eyes, which balanced it.

She was thinking, as a _fiancee_ should, of Aldous and their marriage,
which had been fixed for the end of February. Yet not apparently with
any rapturous absorption. There was a great deal to plan, and her mind
was full of business. Who was to look after her various village schemes
while she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London? Mary Harden had
hardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was. They must find some
capable woman and pay her. The Cravens would tell her, of course, that
she was on the high road to the most degrading of _roles_--the _role_ of
Lady Bountiful. But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls. And
the _role_ itself was inevitable. It all depended upon how it was
managed--in the interest of what ideas.

She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town. It would
certainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward a
little. Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over.

All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell,
which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it was
not easy to hear. Their coming guest was not much in her mind. She
tacitly assumed that her father would look after him. On the two or
three occasions when they had met during the last three months,
including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, her
thoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice of
him--picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be. Of late he had not been
much in the neighbourhood. There had been a slack time for both
candidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hard
canvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the end
of February.

But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin! That interested her. She felt an
intense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certain
nervousness. The impression she might be able to make on him would be in
some sense an earnest of