could. Marcella being all sentiment and impulse, was constantly her
mother's victim, do what she would. But in her quiet moments she stood
on the defensive.

"So the Socialists are the only people who think?" said Mrs. Boyce, who
was now standing by the window, pressing her dog's head against her
dress as he pushed up against her. "Well, I am sorry for the Hardens.
They tell me they give all their substance away--already--and every one
says it is going to be a particularly bad winter. The living, I hear, is
worth nothing. All the same, I should wish them to look more cheerful.
It is the first duty of martyrs."

Marcella looked at her mother indignantly. It seemed to her often that
she said the most heartless things imaginable.

"Cheerful!" she said--"in a village like this--with all the young men
drifting off to London, and all the well-to-do people dissenters--no one
to stand by him--no money and no helpers--the people always ill--wages
eleven and twelve shillings a week--and only the old wrecks of men left
to do the work! He might, I think, expect the people in _this_ house to
back him up a little. All he asks is that papa should go and satisfy
himself with his own eyes as to the difference between our property and
Lord Maxwell's--"

"Lord Maxwell's!" cried Mr. Boyce, rousing himself from a state of
half-melancholy, half-sleepy reverie by the fire, and throwing away his
cigarette--"Lord Maxwell! Difference! I should think so. Thirty thousand
a year, if he has a penny. By the way, I wish he would just have the
civility to answer my note about those coverts over by Willow Scrubs!"