Lady Malloring--she told him--the Mallorings owned, of course, everything round Joyfields--had been telling her that of late Tod's wife had really become quite rabid over the land question.

'The Tods' were hand in glove with all the cottagers.

She, Clara, had nothing to say against any one who sympathized with the condition of the agricultural laborer; quite the contrary.

Becket was almost, as Felix knew--though perhaps it wasn't for her to say so--the centre of that movement; but there were ways of doing things, and one did so deprecate women like this Kirsteen--what an impossibly Celtic name!--putting her finger into any pie that really was of national importance.

Nothing could come of anything done that sort of way.