ha did not like her and
resented the extra work that her stay in the house involved; she was
now more than ever sure of that dislike.

"I thought I was to be called at half-past seven."

"Eight on Sundays," said the old woman. "I hope you're better this
morning, miss."

Maggie felt this to be deeply ironical and flushed.

"I'm quite well, thank you," she said stiffly. "What time is breakfast
on Sundays?"

"The prayer-bell rings at a quarter to nine, miss."

They exchanged no more conversation.

At a quarter to nine a shrill, jangling bell rang out and Maggie
hurried down the dark staircase. She did not know where the dining-room
was, but by good chance she caught sight of Aunt Elizabeth's little
body moving hurriedly down the passage and hastened after her. She
arrived only just in time. There, standing in a row before four chairs,
their faces red and shining, their hands folded in front of them, were
the domestics; there, with a little high desk in front of her, on the
other side of the long dining-room table was Aunt Anne; here, near the
door, were two chairs obviously intended for Aunt Elizabeth and Maggie.

Maggie in her haste pushed the door, and it banged loudly behind her;
in the silent room the noise echoed through the house. It was followed
by a piercing scream from Edward, whom, Maggie concluded, it had
awakened. All this confused her very much and gave her anything but a
religious state of mind.

What followed resembled very much the ceremonies with which her father
had been accustomed to begin the day, except that her father, with one
eye on the bacon, had gabbled at frantic pace through the prayers and
Aunt Anne read them very slowly and with great beauty. She read from
the Gospel of St. John: "These things I command you, that ye love one
another ..."; but the clear, sweet tones of her voice gave no
conviction of a love for mankind.

Maggie looking from that pale remote face to the roughened cheeks and
plump body of the kitchen-maid felt that here there could be no
possible bond. When they knelt down she was conscious, as she had been
since she was a tiny child, of two things--the upturned heels of the
servants' boots and the discomfort to her own knees. These two facts
had always hindered her religious devotions, and they hindered them
now. There had always been to her something irresistibly comic in those
upturned heels, the dull flat surfaces of these cheap shoes. In the
kitchen-maid's there