Marcella locked her hands behind her in a gesture familiar to her in moments of excitement; the light wind blew back her dress in soft, eddying folds; for the moment, in her tall grace, she had the air of some young Victory poised upon a height, till you looked at her face, which was, indeed, not exultant at all, but tragic, extravagantly tragic, as Aldous Raeburn, in his English reserve, would perhaps have thought in the case of any woman with tamer eyes and a less winning mouth.
"I don't want to talk about myself," she began.

"But you know, Mr.
Raeburn--you must know--what a state of things there is here--you know what a _disgrace_ that village is.

Oh! one reads books, but I never thought people could actually _live_ like that--here in the wide country, with room for all.

It makes me lie awake at night.

We are not rich--we are very poor--the house is all out of repair, and the estate, as of course you know, is in a wretched condition.