After this pleasant speech the master of the house relapsed into silence. The old butler moved quietly to and fro. There was a gentle jingle of glass and silver now and then, like the ringing of distant sleigh-bells. The wood ashes fell softly from the wide old grate. The clock ticked in the hall outside. Time halted like a cripple. Bella began to think that even a home Sunday--with Mr. Scratchell swearing at the cooking and Mrs. Scratchell in tears--was better than this. It was at least open misery, and the storm generally blew over as rapidly as it arose. Here there was a suppressed and solemn gloom, as of a tempest always impending and never coming. What a waste of wealth and luxury it seemed to sit in a fine old room like this, surrounded by all good things, and to be obstinately wretched! When dinner was over, and certain dried fruits and pale half-ripened oranges had been carried round by the butler’s subordinate, the butler himself following solemnly with decanters and claret jug, and nobody taking anything, the two girls rose, at a look from Beatrix, and left Mr. Harefield alone. ‘Will you come up to my room and have some tea, papa?’ Beatrix asked at the door. ‘Not to-night, my dear. I have a new number of the _Westminster_ to read. You and Miss Scratchell can amuse yourselves. Good-night.’ No paternal kiss was offered or asked. ‘Good-night, papa,’ said Beatrix, and she and Bella went away. It was a long evening. Bella did not like to open a novel, and did not care for Bishop Ken, whose ‘Practice of Divine Love’ formed the last stage in Miss Harefield’s self-culture. The only piano in the house was ever so far away in the lumber-room, and the lumber-room after dark was suggestive of ghosts and goblins, or at any rate of rats and mice. Sunday evening at the parish church was gayer than this, Bella thought, as she sat by the fire stifling her frequent yawns, and watched Beatrix’s thoughtful face bending over Bishop Ken. ‘Yes, she is much handsomer than I am,’ reflected Bella, with a pang of envy. ‘How can I wonder that he likes her best! She is like one of those old prints Mr. Dulcimer showed us one evening--by Albert Durer, I think. Grave dark faces of Saints and Madonnas. She is like a poem or a picture made alive. And he is full of romance and poetry. No wonder he loves her. It is not for the sake of her fortune. He really does love her.’ And then came the question which in Bella’s mind was unanswerable. ‘Why should she have everything and I so little?’ Beatrix read on, absorbed in her book. The clock ticked, the gray wood ashes dropped upon the hearth, just as they had done in the dining-room. Outside the deep casement windows the night winds were blowing, the ragged tree-tops swaying against a cold gray sky. Bella shivered as she sat by the fire. This was the dreariest Sunday evening she had ever spent.