* * * * *

Of such elements, such memories of persons, things, and events, was
Marcella's reverie by the window made up. One thing, however, which,
clearly, this report of it has not explained, is that spirit of
energetic discontent with her past in which she had entered on her
musings. Why such soreness of spirit? Her childhood had been pinched and
loveless; but, after all, it could well bear comparison with that of
many another child of impoverished parents. There had been compensations
all through--and were not the great passion of her Solesby days,
together with the interest and novelty of her London experience, enough
to give zest and glow to the whole retrospect? Ah! but it will be
observed that in this sketch of Marcella's schooldays nothing has been
said of Marcella's holidays. In this omission the narrative has but
followed the hasty, half-conscious gaps and slurs of the girl's own
thought. For Marcella never thought of those holidays and all that was
connected with them _in detail_, if she could possibly avoid it. But it
was with them, in truth, and with what they implied, that she was so
irritably anxious to be done when she first began to be reflective by
the window; and it was to them she returned with vague, but still
intense consciousness when the rush of active reminiscence died away.

* * * * *

That surely was the breakfast bell ringing, and with the dignified
ancestral sound which was still so novel and attractive to Marcella's
ear. Recalled to Mellor Park and its circumstances, she went
thoughtfully downstairs, pondering a little on the shallow steps of the
beautiful Jacobean staircase. _Could_ she ever turn her back upon those
holidays? Was she not rather, so to speak, just embarked upon their