said aloud, standing in the middle of the dining-room and looking about
her. It never could have been very much of a house, but they (meaning
Paul and Grace) had certainly not done their best for it.

Maggie had had no education, she had not perhaps much natural taste,
but she knew when things and people were sympathetic, and this house
was as unsympathetic as a house could well be. To begin with, the
wall-papers were awful; in the dining-room there was a dark dead green
with some kind of pink flower; the drawing-room was dressed in a kind
of squashed strawberry colour; the wall-paper of the staircases and
passages was of imitation marble, and the three bedrooms were pink,
green, and yellow, perfect horticultural shows.

It was the distinctive quality of all the wall-papers that nothing
looked well against them, and the cheap reproductions in gilt frames,
the religious prints, the photographs (groups of the Rev. Paul at
Cambridge, at St. Ermand's Theological College, with the Skeaton Band
of Hope) were all equally forlorn and out of place.

It was evident that everything in the house was arranged and intended
to stay for ever where it was, the chairs against the walls, the
ornaments on the mantelpieces, the photograph-frames, the plush mats,
the bright red pots with ferns, the long blue vases, and yet the
impression was not one of discipline and order. Aunt Anne's house had
been untidy, but it had had an odd life and atmosphere of its own. This
house was dead, utterly and completely dead. The windows of the
dining-room looked out on to a lawn and round the lawn was a stone wall
with broken glass to protect it. "As though there were anything to
steal!" thought Maggie. But then you cannot expect a garden to look its
best at the beginning of April. "I'll wait a little," thought Maggie.
"And then I'll make this house better. I'll destroy almost everything
in it."

About mid-day with rather a quaking heart Maggie penetrated the
kitchen. Here were gathered together Alice the cook, Emily the
housemaid, and Clara the between maid.

Alice was large, florid, and genial. Nevertheless at once Maggie
distrusted her. No servant had any right to appear so wildly delighted
to see a new mistress. Alice had doubtless her own plans. Emily was
prim and conceited, and Clara did not exist. Alice was ready to do
everything that Maggie wanted, and it was very apparent at once that
she had not liked "Miss Grace."

"Ah, that'll be much b