ily at all her neighbours as though
they were gathered there together to murder her at the earliest
opportunity. She would be desperately confused when asked to pay for
her ticket, would be unable to find her purse, and then when she
discovered it would scatter its contents upon the ground. In such an
agony would she be at the threatened passing of her destination that
she would spring up at every pause of the omnibus, striking her nearest
neighbour's eye or nose with her umbrella, apologising nervously, and
then, because she thought she had been too forward with a stranger,
staring fiercely about her and daring any one to speak to her. Upon the
day that she visited Harrods' she spent the greater part of her time in
the lift because she always wished to be somewhere where she was not,
and because it always went up when she wished it to go down and down
when she wished it to go up. Maggie, upon this eventful occasion, did
her best, but she also was bewildered, and wondered how any of the
attendants found their way home at night. Before the end of the
afternoon Aunt Elizabeth was not far from tears. "It isn't cutlery we
want. I told the man that it was saucepans. They pay us no attention at
all. You aren't any help to me, Maggie." They arrived in a room filled
with performing gramophones. This was the final blow. Aunt Elizabeth,
trembling all over, refused either to advance or retreat. "Will you
please," said Maggie very firmly to a beautifully clothed young man
with hair like a looking-glass, "show us the way to the street?" He
very kindly showed them, and it was not until they were in the homeward
omnibus that Aunt Elizabeth discovered that she had bought nothing at
all.

Nevertheless, although Maggie collected but little interesting detail
from these occasions, she did gather a fine general impression of
whirling movement and adventure. One day she would plunge into
it--meanwhile it was better that she should move slowly and assemble
gradual impressions. The solid caution that was mingled in her nature
with passionate feeling and enthusiasm taught her admirable wisdom.
Aunt Anne, it seemed, never moved beyond the small radius of her home
and the Chapel. She attended continually Bible-meetings,
prayer-meetings, Chapel services. She had one or two intimate friends,
a simple and devout old maid called Miss Pyncheon, Mr. Magnus, whom
Maggie had seen on the day of her arrival, Mr. Thurston, to whom Maggie
had taken an inst