ther to Lady Winterbourne, the
only woman in the neighbourhood with whom he was ever really
confidential. No woman, of course, in Miss Raeburn's position, and with
Miss Raeburn's general interest in her kind, could have been ignorant
for any appreciable number of days after the Boyces' arrival at Mellor
that they possessed a handsome daughter, of whom the Hardens in
particular gave striking but, as Miss Raeburn privately thought, by no
means wholly attractive accounts. And now, after all these somewhat
agitating preliminaries, here was the girl established in the Court
drawing-room, Aldous more nervous and preoccupied than she had ever seen
him, and Lord Maxwell expressing a particular anxiety to return from his
Board meeting in good time for luncheon, to which he had especially
desired that Lady Winterbourne should be bidden, and no one else! It may
well be supposed that Miss Raeburn was on the alert.

As for Marcella, she was on her side keenly conscious of being observed,
of having her way to make. Here she was alone among these formidable
people, whose acquaintance she had in a manner compelled. Well--what
blame? What was to prevent her from doing the same thing again
to-morrow? Her conscience was absolutely clear. If they were not ready
to meet her in the same spirit in which through Mr. Raeburn she had
approached them, she would know perfectly well how to protect
herself--above all, how to live out her life in the future without
troubling them.

Meanwhile, in spite of her dignity and those inward propitiations it
from time to time demanded, she was, in her human vivid way, full of an
excitement and curiosity she could hardly conceal as perfectly as she
desired--curiosity as to the great house and the life in it, especially
as to Aldous Raeburn's part therein. She knew very little indeed of the
class to which by birth she belonged; great houses and great people were
strange to her. She brought her artist's and student's eyes to look at
them with; she was determined not to be dazzled or taken in by them. At
the same time, as she glanced every now and then round the splendid room
in which they sat, with its Tudor ceiling, its fine pictures, its
combination of every luxury with every refinement, she was distinctly
conscious of a certain thrill, a romantic drawing towards the
stateliness and power which it all implied, together with a proud and
careless sense of equality, of kinship so to speak, which she made light