In vain, too, did Miss Raeburn do her best for the nephew to whom she was still devoted, in spite of his deplorable choice of a wife.  She took in the situation as a whole probably sooner than anybody else, and she instantly made heroic efforts to see more of Marcella, to get her to come oftener to the Court, and in many various ways to procure the poor deluded Aldous more of his betrothed’s society.  She paid many chattering and fussy visits to Mellor—­visits which chafed Marcella—­and before long, indeed, roused a certain suspicion in the girl’s wilful mind.  Between Miss Raeburn and Mrs. Boyce there was a curious understanding.  It was always tacit, and never amounted to friendship, still less to intimacy.  But it often yielded a certain melancholy consolation to Aldous Raeburn’s great-aunt.  It was clear to her that this strange mother was just as much convinced as she was that Aldous was making a great mistake, and that Marcella was not worthy of him.  But the engagement being there—­a fact not apparently to be undone—­both ladies showed themselves disposed to take pains with it, to protect it against aggression.  Mrs. Boyce found herself becoming more of a chaperon than she had ever yet professed to be; and Miss Raeburn, as we have said, made repeated efforts to capture Marcella and hold her for Aldous, her lawful master.

But Marcella proved extremely difficult to manage.  In the first place she was a young person of many engagements.  Her village scheme absorbed a great deal of time.  She was deep in a varied correspondence, in the engagement of teachers, the provision of work-rooms, the collecting and registering of workers, the organisation of local committees and so forth.  New sides of the girl’s character, new capacities and capabilities were coming out; new forms of her natural power over her fellows were developing every day; she was beginning, under the incessant stimulus of Wharton’s talk, to read and think on social and economic subjects, with some system and coherence, and it was evident that she took a passionate mental pleasure in it all.  And the more pleasure these activities gave her, the less she had to spare for those accompaniments of her engagement and her position that was to be, which once, as Mrs. Boyce’s sharp eyes perceived, had been quite normally attractive to her.

“Why do you take up her time so, with all these things?” said Miss Raeburn impatiently to Lady Winterbourne, who was now Marcella’s obedient helper in everything she chose to initiate.  “She doesn’t care for anything she ought to care about at this time, and Aldous sees nothing of her.  As for her trousseau, Mrs. Boyce declares she has had to do it all.  Marcella won’t even go up to London to have her wedding-dress fitted!”

Lady Winterbourne looked up bewildered.

“But I can’t make her go and have her wedding-dress fitted, Agneta!  And I always feel you don’t know what a fine creature she is.  You don’t really appreciate her.  It’s splendid the ideas she has about this work, and the way she throws herself into it.”