And Mrs. Hancock wanted to know _why_ Harriett had forsaken her dear
mother's church; and when Connie Pennefather saw the covers she told
Harriett she was lucky to be able to afford new cretonne. It was more than
_she_ could; she seemed to think Harriett had no business to afford
it. As for the breaded cutlets, Hannah opened her eyes and said, "That was
how the mistress always had them, ma'am, when you was away."

One day she took the blue egg out of the drawing-room and stuck it on the
chimney-piece in the spare room. When she remembered how she used to love
it she felt that she had done something cruel and iniquitous, but
necessary to the soul.


She was taking out novels from the circulating library now. Not, she
explained, for her serious reading. Her serious reading, her Dante, her
Browning, her Great Man, lay always on the table ready to her hand (beside
a copy of _The Social Order_ and the _Remains_ of Hilton Frean)
while secretly and half-ashamed she played with some frivolous tale. She
was satisfied with anything that ended happily and had nothing in it that
was unpleasant, or difficult, demanding thought. She exalted her
preferences into high canons. A novel _ought_ to conform to her
requirements. A novelist (she thought of him with some asperity) had no
right to be obscure, or depressing, or to add needless unpleasantness to
the unpleasantness that had to be. The Great Men didn't _do_ it.

She spoke of George Eliot and Dickens and Mr. Thackeray.

Lizzie Pierce had a provoking way of smiling at Harriett, as if she found
her ridiculous. And Harriett had no patience with Lizzie's affectation in
wanting to be modern, her vanity in trying to be young, her middle-aged