‘At home! You were anxious enough to get away from home. I wish anyone knew why. I can’t fancy anything so unnatural as a girl wishing to leave home, except on a visit, or if she is going to be married, or that sort of thing--but to come to a place like this! Agnes, I am sure there is no one belonging to you who knows why.’ ‘Yes,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘because I wanted to do something more, to do some duty in the world, not to be like a vegetable in the garden.’ ‘That is just the slang of the period,’ said wise Roger. ‘You can’t say there is not plenty to do with all the children to look after; and one never can get a button sewed on now.’ ‘Louisa and Liddy were quite able to do all and more than all--why should there be three of us sewing on buttons? And what were we to come to--nothing but buttons all our lives?’ ‘Why, I suppose,’ said Roger, doubtfully--‘what do girls ever come to? You would have been married some time.’ ‘And that is such a delightful prospect!’ cried Agnes, moved to sarcasm. ‘Oh, Roger, is it such an elevated life to jog along as papa--as we have seen people do, thinking of nothing but how to get through the day, and pay the bills, and have a good dinner when we can, and grumble at our neighbours, the children running wild, and the house getting shabby?’ said Agnes, unconsciously falling into portraiture, ‘and talking about the service of God? What is the service of God? Is it just to be comfortable and do what you are obliged to do?’ ‘Well, I suppose it is not to make yourself uncomfortable,’ cried Roger, shirking the more serious question. ‘Though, as for that, if you wished, you could be quite uncomfortable enough at home. What do they mean by calling a room after a woman, St. Monica? and all these crucifixes and things--and that ridiculous dress--I am glad to see you have the sense not to wear it here at least.’ ‘I wear it when I go out; it is not ridiculous; one can go where one pleases, that is, wherever one is wanted, in a Sister’s dress, and the roughest people always respect it,’ said Agnes, warmly. ‘Oh, Roger, why should you be so prejudiced? Do you know what kind of people are here? Poor helpless, friendless children, that have got no home, and the Sisters are like mothers to them. Is that no good? What does it matter about the name of the room, if a poor destitute baby is fed and warmed, and made happy in it? Children that would starve and beg and rob in the streets, or die--that would be the alternative, if these Sisters with their absurd dresses and their ridiculous ways, that make you so angry, did not step in.’