Hubert, John's younger brother, was quite different. He had escaped the family temperament, as he had escaped the family upper lip. He was the one spot of colour in a somewhat sombre household, and Esther liked to hear him call back to his mother, "All right, mother, I've got the key; no one need wait up for me. I'll make the door fast." "Oh, Hubert, don't be later than eleven. You are not going out dancing again, are you? Your father will have the electric bell put on the door, so that he may know when you come in." The four girls were all ruddy-complexioned and long upper-lipped. The eldest was the plainest; she kept her father's books, and made the pastry. The second and third entertained vague hopes of marriage. The youngest was subject to hysterics, fits of some kind. The Bingleys' own house was representative of their ideas, and the taste they had imposed upon the neighbourhood. The staircase was covered with white drugget, and the white enamelled walls had to be kept scrupulously clean. There were no flowers in the windows, but the springs of the blinds were always in perfect order. The drawing-room was furnished with substantial tables, cabinets and chairs, and antimacassars, long and wide, and china ornaments and glass vases. There was a piano, and on this instrument, every Sunday evening, hymns were played by one of the young ladies, and the entire family sang in the chorus. It was into this house that Esther entered as general servant, with wages fixed at sixteen pounds a year. And for seventeen long hours every day, for two hundred and thirty hours every fortnight, she washed, she scrubbed, she cooked, she ran errands, with never a moment that she might call her own. Every second Sunday she was allowed out for four, perhaps for four and a half hours; the time fixed was from three to nine, but she was expected to be back in time to get the supper ready, and if it were many minutes later than nine there were complaints.