lers when he don't need. It's the way
he's got wi' 'im. But _I_ don't make no account of 'im, an' I let 'im
see 't."

All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd. The village was well
acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her son-in-law,
George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison at the mature age of
thirty-five to leave her mother and marry him, and was now one of Lord
Maxwell's keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some little
way out of the village. Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughter
for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her
son-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft
spot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now that
he was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him on
the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved.

Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile. At the mention of Westall,
she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things.

Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful.

"You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs. Jellison?" she
said, looking up. "Is there much poaching in this village now, do you
think?"

There was a dead silence. Mrs. Hurd was at the other end of the cottage
with her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instant
in their work. The eyes of all the old people--of Patton and his wife,
of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs. Brunt--were fixed on the speaker, but
nobody said a word, not even Mrs. Jellison. Marcella coloured.

"Oh, you needn't suppose--" she said, throwing her beautiful head back,
"you needn't suppose that _I_ care about the game, or that I would ever
be mean enough to tell anything that was told me. I know it _does_
cause a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood. I believe it does
here--and I should like to know more about it. I want to make up my mind
what to think. Of course, my father has got his land and his own
opinions. And Lord Maxwell has too. But I am not bound to think like
either of them--I should like you to understand that. It seems to me
right about all such things that people should enquire and find out for
themselves."

Still silence. Mrs. Jellison's mouth twitched, and she threw a sly
provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke
him in the ribs. But she was not going to help him out; and at last the
one male in the company found himself obliged to