“A sour, wooden-faced chap as iver I knew,” said Mrs. Jellison, grudgingly.  “I don’t have nothink to say to him, nor he to me.  He thinks hissen the Grand Turk, he do, since they gi’en him his uniform, and made him full keeper.  A nassty, domineerin’ sort, I calls him.  He’s allus makin’ bad blood wi’ the yoong fellers when he don’t need.  It’s the way he’s got wi’ ’im.  But I don’t make no account of ‘im, an’ I let ’im see ’t.”

All the tea-party grinned except Mrs. Hurd.  The village was well acquainted with the feud between Mrs. Jellison and her son-in-law, George Westall, who had persuaded Isabella Jellison at the mature age of thirty-five to leave her mother and marry him, and was now one of Lord Maxwell’s keepers, with good pay, and an excellent cottage some little way out of the village.  Mrs. Jellison had never forgiven her daughter for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her son-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft spot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now that he was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him on the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved.

Mrs. Hurd, as has been said, did not smile.  At the mention of Westall, she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things.

Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful.

“You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs. Jellison?” she said, looking up.  “Is there much poaching in this village now, do you think?”

There was a dead silence.  Mrs. Hurd was at the other end of the cottage with her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instant in their work.  The eyes of all the old people—­of Patton and his wife, of Mrs. Jellison, and pretty Mrs. Brunt—­were fixed on the speaker, but nobody said a word, not even Mrs. Jellison.  Marcella coloured.

“Oh, you needn’t suppose—­” she said, throwing her beautiful head back, “you needn’t suppose that I care about the game, or that I would ever be mean enough to tell anything that was told me.  I know it does cause a great deal of quarrelling and bad blood.  I believe it does here—­and I should like to know more about it.  I want to make up my mind what to think.  Of course, my father has got his land and his own opinions.  And Lord Maxwell has too.  But I am not bound to think like either of them—­I should like you to understand that.  It seems to me right about all such things that people should enquire and find out for themselves.”

Still silence.  Mrs. Jellison’s mouth twitched, and she threw a sly provocative glance at old Patton, as though she would have liked to poke him in the ribs.  But she was not going to help him out; and at last the one male in the company found himself obliged to clear his throat for reply.

“We’re old folks, most on us, miss, ’cept Mrs. Hurd.  We don’t hear talk o’ things now like as we did when we were younger.  If you ast Mr. Harden he’ll tell you, I dessay.”