resigned, now showing a furtive childish amusement if a schoolboy
misbehaved, or a dog strayed into church, now joining with a stolid
unconsciousness in the tremendous sayings of the Psalms; women coarse,
or worn, or hopeless; girls and boys and young children already blanched
and emaciated beyond even the normal Londoner from the effects of
insanitary cottages, bad water, and starvation food--these figures and
types had been a ghastly and quickening revelation to Marcella. In
London the agricultural labourer, of whom she had heard much, had been
to her as a pawn in the game of discussion. Here he was in the flesh;
and she was called upon to live with him, and not only to talk about
him. Under circumstances of peculiar responsibility too. For it was very
clear that upon the owner of Mellor depended, and had always depended,
the labourer of Mellor.

Well, she had tried to live with them ever since she came--had gone in
and out of their cottages in flat horror and amazement at them and their
lives and their surroundings; alternately pleased and repelled by their
cringing; now enjoying her position among them with the natural
aristocratic instinct of women, now grinding her teeth over her father's
and uncle's behaviour and the little good she saw any prospect of doing
for her new subjects.

What, _their_ friend and champion, and ultimately their redeemer too?
Well, and why not? Weak women have done greater things in the world. As
she stood on the chancel step, vowing herself to these great things, she
was conscious of a dramatic moment--would not have been sorry,
perhaps, if some admiring eye could have seen and understood her.

But there was a saving sincerity at the root of her, and her strained
mood sank naturally into a girlish excitement.