Oh! the people on the estate know; his neighbours are beginning to know; and now that he is going into Parliament, the country will know some day, if work and high intelligence have the power I believe.

But I am impatient! In the first place--I may say it to you, Miss Boyce!--I want Aldous to come out of that _manner_ of his to strangers, which is the only bit of the true Tory in him; _you_ can get rid of it, no one else can--How long shall I give you ?--And in the next, I want the world not to be wasting itself on baser stuff when it might be praising Aldous!" "Does he mean Mr.Wharton ?" thought Marcella, quickly.

"But this world--our world--hates him and runs him down." But she had no time to answer, for the door opened to admit Aldous, flushed and bright-eyed, looking round the room immediately for her, and bearing a parcel in his left hand.
"Does she love him at all ?" thought Hallin, with a nervous stiffening of all his lithe frame, as he walked away to talk to Mrs.Boyce, "or, in spite of all her fine talk, is she just marrying him for his money and position!" Meanwhile, Aldous had drawn Marcella into the Stone Parlour and was standing by the fire with his arm covetously round her.
"I have lost two hours with you I might have had, just because a tiresome man missed his train.

Make up for it by liking these pretty things a little, for my sake and my mother's." He opened the jeweller's case, took out the fine old pearls--necklace and bracelets--it contained, and put them into her hand.

They were his first considerable gift to her, and had been chosen for association's sake, seeing that his mother had also worn them before her marriage.
She flushed first of all with a natural pleasure, the girl delighting in her gaud.