When it appeared certain that he would be summoned for some specially flagrant piece of neglect he would spend a few shillings on repairs; otherwise not a farthing.

All that filial softening towards him of which Marcella had been conscious in the early autumn had died away in her.

She said to herself now plainly and bitterly that it was a misfortune to belong to him; and she would have pitied her mother most heartily if her mother had ever allowed her the smallest expression of such a feeling.

As it was, she was left to wonder and chafe at her mother's new-born mildness.
In the drawing-room, after luncheon, Hallin came up to Marcella in a corner, and, smiling, drew from his pocket a folded sheet of foolscap.
"I made Aldous give me his speech to show you, before to-morrow night," he said.

"He would hardly let me take it, said it was stupid, and that you would not agree with it.