quite unworldly. They lived as workmen; and both the luxuries and the
charities of the rich were equally odious to them. That there could be
any "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredible
to them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn from
the existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome,
the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss the
Socialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger.
And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic gift
than either of them, was like unto them.

Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of their
friends. She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the public
evenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged. Edie,
the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read the
books of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love and
dreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, the
herald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shall
enjoy. The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason,
brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle,
together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; they
flattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance of
women to the new doctrine and the new era.

The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other,
probably. Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she was
deeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt at
that time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced her
vitally at a critical moment of life. "Blessed are the poor"--"Woe unto
you, rich men"--these were the only articles of his scanty creed, but
they were held with a fervour, and acted upon with a conviction, which