Mrs.Jellison had never forgiven her daughter for deserting her, and was on lively terms of hostility with her son-in-law; but their only child, little Johnnie, had found the soft spot in his grandmother, and her favourite excitement in life, now that he was four years old, was to steal him from his parents and feed him on the things of which Isabella most vigorously disapproved.
Mrs.Hurd, as has been said, did not smile.

At the mention of Westall, she got up hastily, and began to put away the tea things.
Marcella meanwhile had been sitting thoughtful.
"You say Westall makes bad blood with the young men, Mrs.Jellison ?" she said, looking up.

"Is there much poaching in this village now, do you think ?" There was a dead silence.

Mrs.Hurd was at the other end of the cottage with her back to Marcella; at the question, her hands paused an instant in their work.

The eyes of all the old people--of Patton and his wife, of Mrs.Jellison, and pretty Mrs.Brunt--were fixed on the speaker, but nobody said a word, not even Mrs.Jellison.Marcella coloured.
"Oh, you needn't suppose--" she said, throwing her beautiful head back, "you needn't suppose that _I_ care about the game, or that I would ever be mean enough to tell anything that was told me.