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.