were the signs of wear; Martha's were new and
shining; the house-maid's were smart and probably creaked abominably.
The bodies above them sniffed and rustled and sighed. The vacant,
stupid faces of the shoes were Aunt Anne's only audience. Maggie
wondered what the owners of those shoes felt about the house. Had they
a sense of irritation too or did they perhaps think about nothing at
all save their food, their pay and their young man or their night out?
The pain to her knees pierced her thoughts; the prayers were very
long?--Aunt Anne's beautiful voice was interminable.

Breakfast was quiet and silent. Edward, who received apparently a
larger meal on Sundays than at ordinary times, chattered happily to
himself, and Maggie heard him say complacently, "Poor Parrot?--Poor
Parrot. How do you do? How do you do?"

"Service is at eleven o'clock, dear," said Aunt Anne. "We leave the
house at ten minutes to eleven."

Maggie, not knowing what to do with the hour in front of her, went up
to her bedroom, found the servant making the bed, came down into the
drawing-room and sat in a dark corner under a large bead mat, that,
nailed to the wall, gave little taps and rustlings as though it were
trying to escape.

She felt that she should be doing something, but what? She sat there,
straining her ear for sounds. "One always seems to be expecting some
one in this house," she thought. The weather that had been bright had
now changed and little gusts of rain beat upon the windows. She thought
with a sudden strange warmth of Uncle Mathew. What was he doing? Where
was he? How pleasant it would be were he suddenly to walk into that
chilly, dark room. She would not show him that she was lonely, but she
would give him such a welcome as he had never had from her before. Had
he money enough? Was he feeling perhaps as desolate amongst strangers
as she? The rain tickled the window-panes. Maggie, with a desolation at
her heart that she was too proud to own, sat there and waited.

She looked back afterwards upon that moment as the last shivering pause
before she made that amazing plunge that was to give her new life.

The sound of a little forlorn bell suddenly penetrated the rain. It was
just such a bell as rang every Sunday from chapels across the
Glebeshire moors, and Maggie knew, when Aunt Elizabeth opened the door
and looked in upon her, that the summons was for her.

"Oh! my dear (a favourite exclamation of Aunt Elizabeth's) and you're