In truth, this woman of nearly seventy—­old in years, but wholly young in temperament—­was altogether under Marcella’s spell—­more at ease with her already than with most of her own children, finding in her satisfaction for a hundred instincts, suppressed or starved by her own environment, fascinated by the girl’s friendship, and eagerly grateful for her visits.  Miss Raeburn thought it all both incomprehensible and silly.

“Apparently no one can!” cried that lady in answer to her friend’s demurrer; “is all the world afraid of her?”

And she departed in wrath.  But she knew, nevertheless, that she was just as much afraid of Marcella as anybody else.  In her own sphere at the Court, or in points connected with what was due to the family, or to Lord Maxwell especially, as the head of it, this short, capable old lady could hold her own amply with Aldous’s betrothed, could maintain, indeed, a sharp and caustic dignity, which kept Marcella very much in order.  Miss Raeburn, on the defensive, was strong; but when it came to attacking Marcella’s own ideas and proceedings, Lord Maxwell’s sister became shrewdly conscious of her own weaknesses.  She had no wish to measure her wits on any general field with Marcella’s.  She said to herself that the girl was too clever and would talk you down.

Meanwhile, things went untowardly in various ways.  Marcella disciplined herself before the Gairsley meeting, and went thither resolved to give Aldous as much sympathy as she could.  But the performance only repelled a mind over which Wharton was every day gaining more influence.  There was a portly baronet in the chair; there were various Primrose Dames on the platform and among the audience; there was a considerable representation of clergy; and the labourers present seemed to Marcella the most obsequious of their kind.  Aldous spoke well—­or so the audience seemed to think; but she could feel no enthusiasm for anything that he said.  She gathered that he advocated a Government inspection of cottages, more stringent precautions against cattle disease, better technical instruction, a more abundant provision of allotments and small freeholds, &c.; and he said many cordial and wise-sounding things in praise of a progress which should go safely and wisely from step to step, and run no risks of dangerous reaction.  But the assumptions on which, as she told herself rebelliously, it all went—­that the rich and the educated must rule, and the poor obey; that existing classes and rights, the forces of individualism and competition, must and would go on pretty much as they were; that great houses and great people, the English land and game system, and all the rest of our odious class paraphernalia were in the order of the universe; these ideas, conceived as the furniture of Aldous’s mind, threw her again into a ferment of passionate opposition.  And when the noble baronet in the chair—­to her eye, a pompous, frock-coated stick, sacrificing