His air of appealing candour could not have been more engaging.

"Yes, I fear I was a little beast. And he was, even then, and always,
'the good and beautiful.' You don't understand Greek, do you, Miss
Boyce? But he was very good to me. I got into an awful scrape once. I
let out a pair of eagle owls that used to be kept in the courtyard--Sir
Charles loved them a great deal more than his babies--I let them out at
night for pure wickedness, and they came to fearful ends in the park. I
was to have been sent home next day, in the most unnecessary and penal
hurry. But Aldous interposed--said he would look after me for the rest
of the holidays."

"And then you tormented him?"

"Oh no!" he said with gentle complacency. "Oh no! I never torment
anybody. But one must enjoy oneself you know; what else can one do? Then
afterwards, when we were older--somehow I don't know--but we didn't get
on. It is very sad--I wish he thought better of me."

The last words were said with a certain change of tone, and sitting up
he laid the tips of his fingers together on his knees with a little
plaintive air. Marcella's eyes danced with amusement, but she looked
away from him to the fire, and would not answer.

"You don't help me out. You don't console me. It's unkind of-you. Don't
you think it a melancholy fate to be always admiring the people who
detest you?"

"Don't admire them!" she said merrily.

His eyebrows lifted. "_That_," he said drily, "is disloyal. I call--I
call your ancestor over the mantelpiece"--he waved his hand towards a
blackened portrait in front of him--"to witness, that I am all for
admiring Mr. Raeburn, and you discourage it. Well, but now--_now_"--he
drew his chair eagerly towards hers, the pose of a minute before thrown
to the winds--"do let us understand each other a little more before
people come. You know I have a labour newspaper?"

She nodded.

"You read it?"

"Is it the _Labour Clarion_? I take it in."

"Capital!" he cried. "Then I know now why I found a copy in the village
here. You lent it to a man called Hurd?"

"I did."

"Whose wife worships you?--whose good angel you have been? Do I know
something about you, or do I not? Well, now, are you satisfied with that
paper? Can you suggest to me means of improving it? It wants some fresh
blood, I think--I must find it? I bought the thing last year, in a
moribund condition, with the old staff. Oh! we will certainly take
counsel together about it--most ce