Mrs Humphry Ward

Marcella Mrs Humphry Ward

"The mists-and the sun-and the first streaks of yellow in the beeches-beautiful!-beautiful!" And with a long breath of delight Marcella Boyce threw herself on her knees by the window she had just opened, and, propping her face upon her hands, devoured the scene, before her with that passionate intensity of pleasure which had been her gift and heritage through life. She looked out upon a broad and level lawn, smoothed by the care of centuries, flanked on either side by groups of old trees-some Scotch firs, some beeches, a cedar or two-groups where the slow selective hand of time had been at work for generations, developing here the delightful roundness of quiet mass and shade, and there the bold caprice of bare fir trunks and ragged branches, standing black against the sky.