rt of every day to make that part
of the social machine in which a man finds himself work better and more
equitably, I have never seen Aldous's equal--for the steady passion, the
persistence, of it."

She looked up. His pale face had taken to itself glow and fire; his eyes
were full of strenuous, nay, severe expression. Her foolish pride
rebelled a little.

"Of course, I haven't seen much of that yet," she said slowly.

His look for a moment was indignant, incredulous, then melted into a
charming eagerness.

"But you will! naturally you will!--see everything. I hug myself
sometimes now for pure pleasure that some one besides his grandfather
and I will know what Aldous is and does. Oh! the people on the estate
know; his neighbours are beginning to know; and now that he is going
into Parliament, the country will know some day, if work and high
intelligence have the power I believe. But I am impatient! In the first
place--I may say it to you, Miss Boyce!--I want Aldous to come out of
that _manner_ of his to strangers, which is the only bit of the true
Tory in him; _you_ can get rid of it, no one else can--How long shall I
give you?--And in the next, I want the world not to be wasting itself on
baser stuff when it might be praising Aldous!"

"Does he mean Mr. Wharton?" thought Marcella, quickly. "But this
world--our world--hates him and runs him down."

But she had no time to answer, for the door opened to admit Aldous,
flushed and bright-eyed, looking round the room immediately for her, and
bearing a parcel in his left hand.

"Does she love him at all?" thought Hallin, with a nervous stiffening of
all his lithe frame, as he walked away to talk to Mrs. Boyce, "or, in
spite of all her fine talk, is she just marrying him for his money and
position!"

Meanwhile, Aldous had drawn Marcella into the Stone Parlour and was
standing by the fire with his arm covetously round her.

"I have lost two hours with you I might have had, just because a
tiresome man missed his train. Make up for it by liking these pretty
things a little, for my sake and my mother's."

He opened the jeweller's case, took out the fine old pearls--necklace
and bracelets--it contained, and put them into her hand. They were his
first considerable gift to her, and had been chosen for association's
sake, seeing that his mother had also worn them before her marriage.

She flushed first of all with a natural pleasure, the girl delighting in
her gaud. The