hey are sure to attack the
cottages--and other things."

Mrs. Boyce took no notice as far as she herself was concerned, but her
quiet decision at last succeeded in leaving Mr. Boyce safely settled by
the fire, provided as usual with a cigarette and a French novel.

The meeting was held in a little iron Baptist chapel, erected some few
years before on the outskirts of the village, to the grief and scandal
of Mr. Harden. There were about a hundred and twenty labourers present,
and at the back some boys and girls, come to giggle and make a
noise--nobody else. The Baptist minister, a smooth-faced young man,
possessed, as it turned out, of opinions little short of Wharton's own
in point of vigour and rigour, was already in command. A few late
comers, as they slouched in, stole side looks at Marcella and the veiled
lady in black beside her, sitting in the corner of the last bench; and
Marcella nodded to one or two of the audience, Jim Hurd amongst them.
Otherwise no one took any notice of them. It was the first time that
Mrs. Boyce had been inside any building belonging to the village.

Wharton arrived late. He had been canvassing at a distance, and neither
of the Mellor ladies had seen him all day. He slipped up the bench with
a bow and a smile to greet them. "I am done!" he said to Marcella, as he
took off his hat. "My voice is gone, my mind ditto. I shall drivel for
half an hour and let them go. Did you ever see such a stolid set?"

"You will rouse them," said Marcella.

Her eyes were animated, her colour high, and she took no account at all
of his plea of weariness.

"You challenge me? I must rouse them--that was what you came to see? Is
that it?"

She laughed and made no answer. He left her and went up to the
minister's desk, the men shuffling their feet a little, and rattling a
stick here and there as he did so.

The young minister took the chair and introduced the speaker. He had a
strong Yorkshire accent, and his speech was divided between the most
vehement attacks, couched in the most Scriptural language, upon capital
and privilege--that is to say, on landlords and the land system, on
State churches and the "idle rich," interspersed with quavering returns
upon himself, as though he were scared by his own invective. "My
brothers, let us be _calm_!" he would say after every burst of passion,
with a long deep-voiced emphasis on the last word; "let us, above all
things, be _calm_!"--and then bit by bit voice and