“As the eyes of servants towards the hand of their mistress”—­the old words occurred to her as she thought of herself stepping in and out of the cottages.  Then she was ashamed of herself and rejected the image with vehemence.  Dependence was the curse of the poor.  Her whole aim, of course, should be to teach them to stand on their own feet, to know themselves as men.  But naturally they would be grateful, they would let themselves be led.  Intelligence and enthusiasm give power, and ought to give it—­power for good.  No doubt, under Socialism, there will be less scope for either, because there will be less need.  But Socialism, as a system, will not come in our generation.  What we have to think for is the transition period.  The Cravens had never seen that, but Marcella saw it.  She began to feel herself a person of larger experience than they.

As she undressed, it seemed to her as though she still felt the clinging hands of the Hurd children round her knees, and through them, symbolised by them, the suppliant touch of hundreds of other helpless creatures.

She was just dropping to sleep when her own words to Aldous Raeburn flashed across her,—­

“Everybody is so ready to take charge of other people’s lives, and look at the result!”

She must needs laugh at herself, but it made little matter.  She fell asleep cradled in dreams.  Aldous Raeburn’s final part in them was not great!

CHAPTER VIII.

Mrs. Boyce wrote her note to Miss Raeburn, a note containing cold though civil excuses as to herself, while accepting the invitation for Marcella, who should be sent to the Court, either in the carriage or under the escort of a maid who could bring her back.  Marcella found her mother inclined to insist punctiliously on conventions of this kind.  It amused her, in submitting to them, to remember the free and easy ways of her London life.  But she submitted—­and not unwillingly.

On the afternoon of the day which intervened between the Maxwells’ call and her introduction to the Court, Marcella walked as usual down to the village.  She was teeming with plans for her new kingdom, and could not keep herself out of it.  And an entry in one of the local papers had suggested to her that Hurd might possibly find work in a parish some miles from Mellor.  She must go and send him off there.

When Mrs. Hurd opened the door to her, Marcella was astonished to perceive behind her the forms of several other persons filling up the narrow space of the usually solitary cottage—­in fact, a tea-party.