ght
to be taken from us; some day it will be taken from us!"

Aldous Raeburn smiled, and was himself again. A woman's speculations
were easier to deal with than a woman's distress.

"It is not so hopeless as that, I think," he said kindly. "The Mellor
cottages are in a bad state certainly. But you have no idea how soon a
little energy and money and thought sets things to rights."

"But we have no money!" cried Marcella. "And if he is miserable here, my
father will have no energy to do anything. He will not care what
happens. He will defy everybody, and just spend what he has on himself.
And it will make me wretched--_wretched_. Look at that cottage to the
right, Mr. Raeburn. It is Jim Hurd's--a man who works mainly on the
Church Farm, when he is in work. But he is deformed, and not so strong
as others. The farmers too seem to be cutting down labour everywhere--of
course I don't understand--I am so new to it. Hurd and his family had an
_awful_ winter, last winter--hardly kept body and soul together. And now
he is out of work already--the man at the Church Farm turned him off
directly after harvest. He sees no prospect of getting work by the
winter. He spends his days tramping to look for it; but nothing turns
up. Last winter they parted with all they could sell. This winter it
must be the workhouse! It's _heart-breaking_. And he has a mind; he can
_feel_! I lend him the Labour paper I take in, and get him to talk. He
has more education than most, and oh! the _bitterness_ at the bottom of
him. But not against persons--individuals. It is like a sort of blind
patience when you come to that--they make excuses even for Uncle Robert,
to whom they have paid rent all these years for a cottage which is a
crime--yes, a _crime_! The woman must have been such a pretty
creature--and refined too. She is consumptive, of course--what else
could you expect with that cottage and that food? So is the eldest
boy--a little white atomy! And the other children. Talk of London--I
never saw such sickly objects as there are in this village. Twelve
shillings a week, and work about half the year! Oh! they _ought_ to hate
us!--I try to make them," cried Marcella, her eyes gleaming. "They ought
to hate all of us landowners, and the whole wicked system. It keeps them
from the land which they ought to be sharing with us; it makes one man
master, instead of all men brothers. And who is fit to be master? Which
of us? Everybody is so ready to take the c