He carried him in to the fire and sat him on his knees.  The little emaciated creature, flushed with the pleasure of his father’s company, played contentedly in the intervals of coughing with the shining chestnuts, or ate his slice of the fine pear—­the gift of a friend in Thame—­which proved to be the “summat else” of promise.  The curtains were close-drawn; the paraffin lamp flared on the table, and as the savoury smell of the hare and onions on the fire filled the kitchen, the whole family gathered round watching for the moment of eating.  The fire played on the thin legs and pinched faces of the children; on the baby’s cradle in the further corner; on the mother, red-eyed still, but able to smile and talk again; on the strange Celtic face and matted hair of the dwarf.  Family affection—­and the satisfaction of the simpler physical needs—­these things make the happiness of the poor.  For this hour, to-night, the Hurds were happy.

Meanwhile, in the lane outside, Marcella, as she walked home, passed a tall broad-shouldered man in a velveteen suit and gaiters, his gun over his shoulder and two dogs behind him, his pockets bulging on either side.  He walked with a kind of military air, and touched his cap to her as he passed.

Marcella barely nodded.

“Tyrant and bully!” she thought to herself with Mrs. Hurd’s story in her mind.  “Yet no doubt he is a valuable keeper; Lord Maxwell would be sorry to lose him!  It is the system makes such men—­and must have them.”

The clatter of a pony carriage disturbed her thoughts.  A small, elderly lady, in a very large mushroom hat, drove past her in the dusk and bowed stiffly.  Marcella was so taken by surprise that she barely returned the bow.  Then she looked after the carriage.  That was Miss Raeburn.

To-morrow!

CHAPTER X.

“Won’t you sit nearer to the window?  We are rather proud of our view at this time of year,” said Miss Raeburn to Marcella, taking her visitor’s jacket from her as she spoke, and laying it aside.  “Lady Winterbourne is late, but she will come, I am sure.  She is very precise about engagements.”

Marcella moved her chair nearer to the great bow-window, and looked out over the sloping gardens of the Court, and the autumn splendour of the woods girdling them in on all sides.  She held her head nervously erect, was not apparently much inclined to talk, and Miss Raeburn, who had resumed her knitting within a few paces of her guest, said to herself presently after a few minutes’ conversation on the weather and the walk from Mellor:  “Difficult—­decidedly difficult—­and too much manner for a young girl.  But the most picturesque creature I ever set eyes on!”