As she spoke she took off her velvet cloak, put it carefully aside on a sofa, and sat down again, still in her bonnet, at the tea-table.  Her dress was very different from Marcella’s, which, when they were not in mourning, was in general of the ample “aesthetic” type, and gave her a good deal of trouble out of doors.  Marcella wore “art serges” and velveteens; Mrs. Boyce attired herself in soft and costly silks, generally black, closely and fashionably made, and completed by various fanciful and distinguished trifles—­rings, an old chatelaine, a diamond brooch—­which Marcella remembered, the same, and worn in the same way, since her childhood.  Mrs. Boyce, however, wore her clothes so daintily, and took such scrupulous and ingenious care of them, that her dress cost, in truth, extremely little—­certainly less than Marcella’s.

There were sounds first of footsteps in the hall, then of some scolding of William, and finally Mr. Boyce entered, tired and splashed from shooting, and evidently in a bad temper.

“Well, what are you going to do about those cards?” he asked his wife abruptly when she had supplied him with tea, and he was beginning to dry by the fire.  He was feeling ill and reckless; too tired anyway to trouble himself to keep up appearances with Marcella.

“Return them,” said Mrs. Boyce, calmly, blowing out the flame of her silver kettle.

“I don’t want any of their precious society,” he said irritably.  “They should have done their calling long ago.  There’s no grace in it now; I don’t know that one isn’t inclined to think it an intrusion.”

But the women were silent.  Marcella’s attention was diverted from her mother to the father’s small dark head and thin face.  There was a great repulsion and impatience in her heart, an angry straining against circumstance and fate; yet at the same time a mounting voice of natural affection, an understanding at once sad and new, which paralysed and silenced her.  He stood in her way—­terribly in her way—­and yet it strangely seemed to her, that never before till these last few weeks had she felt herself a daughter.

“You are very wet, papa,” she said to him as she took his cup; “don’t you think you had better go at once and change?”

“I’m all right,” he said shortly—­“as right as I’m likely to be, anyway.  As for the shooting, it’s nothing but waste of time and shoe leather.  I shan’t go out any more.  The place has been clean swept by some of those brutes in the village—­your friends, Marcella.  By the way, Evelyn, I came across young Wharton in the road just now.”

“Wharton?” said his wife, interrogatively.  “I don’t remember—­ought I?”

“Why, the Liberal candidate for the division, of course,” he said testily.  “I wish you would inform yourself of what goes on.  He is working like a horse, he tells me.  Dodgson, the Raeburns’ candidate, has got a great start; this young man will want all his time to catch him up.  I like him.  I won’t vote for him; but I’ll see fair play.  I’ve asked him to come to tea here on Saturday, Evelyn.  He’ll be back again by the end of the week.  He stays at Dell’s farm when he comes—­pretty bad accommodation, I should think.  We must show him some civility.”