l up in, you think?" said Marcella,
recklessly, putting on her gloves for departure. "Perhaps you'll be
pleased to hear that I _am_ going to a meeting of Mr. Raeburn's next
week?"

"I _am_ glad. You ought to go to them all."

"Really, Mary! How am I to lift you out of this squaw theory of
matrimony? Allow me to inform you that the following evening I am going
to one of Mr. Wharton's--here in the schoolroom!"

She enjoyed her friend's disapproval.

"By yourself, Marcella? It isn't seemly!"

"I shall take a maid. Mr. Wharton is going to tell us how the people
can--get the land, and how, when they have got it, all the money that
used to go in rent will go in taking off taxes and making life
comfortable for the poor." She looked at Mary with a teasing smile.

"Oh! I dare say he will make his stealing sound very pretty," said Mary,
with unwonted scorn, as she opened the front door for her friend.

Marcella flashed out.

"I know you are a saint, Mary," she said, turning back on the path
outside to deliver her last shaft. "I am often not so sure whether you
are a Christian!"

Then she hurried off without another word, leaving the flushed and
shaken Mary to ponder this strange dictum.

* * * * *

Marcella was just turning into the straight drive which led past the
church on the left to Mellor House, when she heard footsteps behind her,
and, looking round, she saw Edward Hallin.

"Will you give me some lunch, Miss Boyce, in return for a message? I am
here instead of Aldous, who is very sorry for himself, and will be over
later. I am to tell you that he went down to the station to meet a
certain box. The box did not come, but will come this afternoon; so he
waits for it, and will bring it over."

Marcella flushed, smiled, and said she understood. Hallin moved on
beside her, evidently glad of the opportunity of a talk with her.

"We are all going together to the Gairsley meeting next week, aren't we?
I am so glad you are coming. Aldous will do his best."

There was something very winning in his tone to her. It implied both
his old and peculiar friendship for Aldous, and his eager wish to find a
new friend in her--to adopt her into their comradeship. Something very
winning, too, in his whole personality--in the loosely knit, nervous
figure, the irregular charm of feature, the benignant eyes and
brow--even in the suggestions of physical delicacy, cheerfully
concealed, yet none the le