ur home to think of first."

"Poor starved things!" said Marcella sarcastically--"living in such a
_den_!"

And she swept her white hand round, as though calling to witness the
room in which they sat.

"I tell you," said Mr. Boyce, rising and standing before the fire,
whence he angrily surveyed the handsome daughter who was in truth so
little known to him, and whose nature and aims during the close contact
of the last few weeks had become something of a perplexity and
disturbance to him,--"I tell you our great effort, the effort of us all,
must be to keep up the family position!--_our_ position. Look at that
library, and its condition; look at the state of these wall-papers; look
at the garden; look at the estate books if it comes to that. Why, it
will be years before, even with all my knowledge of affairs, I can pull
the thing through--years!"

Mrs. Boyce gave a slight cough--she had pushed back her chair, and was
alternately studying her husband and daughter. They might have been
actors performing for her amusement. And yet, amusement is not precisely
the word. For that hazel eye, with its frequent smile, had not a spark
of geniality. After a time those about her found something scathing in
its dry light.

Now, as soon as her husband became aware that she was watching him, his
look wavered, and his mood collapsed. He threw her a curious furtive
glance, and fell silent.

"I suppose Mr. Harden and his sister remind you of your London Socialist
friends, Marcella?" asked Mrs. Boyce lightly, in the pause that
followed. "You have, I see, taken a great liking for them."

"Oh! well--I don't know," said Marcella, with a shrug, and something of
a proud reticence. "Mr. Harden is very kind--but--he doesn't seem to
have thought much about things."

She never talked about her London friends to her mother, if she could
help it. The sentiments of life generally avoided Mrs. Boyce when they
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,