ds, and did not possess her confidence; but
her constant separation from them since her childhood had now sometimes
the result of giving her the boldness with them that a stranger might
have had. She had no habitual deference to break through, and the
hindering restraints of memory, though strong, were still less strong
than they would have been if she had lived with them day by day and year
by year, and had known their lives in close detail instead of guessing
at them, as was now so often the case with her.

"Papa, is Lord Maxwell's note an uncivil one?"

Mr. Boyce stooped forward and began to rub his chilly hand over the
blaze.

"Why, that man's only son and I used to loaf and shoot and play cricket
together from morning till night when we were boys. Henry Raeburn was a
bit older than I, and he lent me the gun with which I shot my first
rabbit. It was in one of the fields over by Soleyhurst, just where the
two estates join. After that we were always companions--we used to go
out at night with the keepers after poachers; we spent hours in the snow
watching for wood-pigeons; we shot that pair of kestrels over the inner
hall door, in the Windmill Hill fields--at least I did--I was a better
shot than he by that time. He didn't like Robert--he always wanted me."

"Well, papa, but what does he say?" asked Marcella, impatiently. She
laid her hand, however, as she spoke, on her father's shoulder.

Mr. Boyce winced and looked up at her. He and her mother had originally
sent their daughter away from home that they might avoid the daily
worry of her awakening curiosities, and one of his resolutions in coming
to Mellor Park had been to keep up his dignity with her. But the sight
of her dark face bent upon him, softened by a quick and womanly
compassion, seemed to set free a new impulse in him.

"He writes in the third person, if you want to know, my dear, and refers
me to his agent, very much as though I were some London grocer who had
just bought the place. Oh, it is quite evident what he means. They were
here without moving all through June and July, and it is now three weeks
at least since he and Miss Raeburn came back from Scotland, and not a
card nor a word from either of them! Nor from the Winterbournes, nor the
Levens. Pleasant! Well, my dear, you must make up your mind to it. I did
think--I was fool enough to think--that when I came back to the old
place, my father's old friends would let bygones be bygones. I never