Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread.
There was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness itself and had shown real affection for Maggie.Within the last week she had written two very affectionate letters.What was this, then, that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the garden and the place.Grace had left her mark upon everything and every one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog.Especially upon Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency to tremble all over when you called him.He had attached himself to Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule, interested in her.Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a yellow supplicating eye.She didn't like him and she would be glad when Grace collected him again--but why did he tremble?
She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose, that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul, and, indeed, all her future life.She had not realised that in London.Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant.Already here in Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.
Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house.
She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, and china ornaments.She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing the air.