Mrs. Baxter was exceedingly absorbed just now in a new pious book of meditations written by a clergyman. A nicely bound copy of it, which she had ordered specially, had arrived by the parcels post that morning; and she had been sitting in the drawing room ever since looking through it, and marking it with a small silver pencil. Religion was to this lady what horticulture was to Maggie, except of course that it was really important, while horticulture was not. She often wondered that Maggie did not seem to understand: of course she went to Mass every morning, dear girl; but religion surely was much more than that; one should be able to sit for two or three hours over a book in the drawing room, before the fire, with a silver pencil.
So at lunch she prattled of the book almost continuously, and at the end of it thought Maggie more unsubtle than ever: she looked rather tired and strained, thought the old lady, and she hardly said a word from beginning to end.
The drive in the afternoon was equally unsatisfactory. Mrs. Baxter took the book with her, and the pencil, in order to read aloud a few extracts here and there; and she again seemed to find Maggie rather vacuous and silent.
“Dearest child, you are not very well, I think,” she said at last.
Maggie roused herself suddenly.
“What, Auntie?”
“You are not very well, I think. Did you sleep well?”
“Oh! I slept all right,” said Maggie vaguely.