Passion Week. It gave you an awful feeling of something going to happen. In the long narrow dining-room the sunlight through the three windows made a strange and solemn blue colour in the dark curtains. Mamma sat up at the mahogany table, looking sad and serious, with the Prayer Book open before her at the Litany. When you went in you knew that you would have to read about the Crucifixion. Nothing could save you. Still you did find out things about God. In the Epistle it said: "'Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in my anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.'" The Passion meant that God had flown into another temper and that Jesus was crucified to make him good again. Mark said you mustn't say that to Mamma; but he owned that it looked like it. Anyhow it was easier to think of it that way than to think that God sent Jesus down to be crucified because you were naughty. There were no verses in the Prayer-Book Bible, only long grey slabs like tombstones. You kept on looking for the last tombstone. When you came to the one with the big black letters, THE KING OF THE JEWS, you knew that it would soon be over. "'They clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head....'" She read obediently: "'And when the sixth hour was come ... and when the sixth hour was come there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice.... And Jesus cried with a loud voice ... with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.'" Mamma was saying that the least you could do was to pay attention. But you couldn't pay attention every time. The first time it was beautiful and terrible; but after many times the beauty went and you were only frightened. When she tried to think about the crown of thorns she thought of the new hat Catty had bought for Easter Sunday and what Mr. Spall did when he ate the parsnips. Through the barred windows of the basement she could hear Catty singing in the pantry: "'I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me....'" Catty was happy when she sang and danced round and round with the dish-cloth. And Jenny and Mr. Spall were happy when they talked about Jesus. But Mamma was not happy. She had had to read the Morning Prayer and the Psalms and the Lessons and the Litany to herself every morning; and by Thursday she was tired and cross. Passion Week gave you an awful feeling. Good Friday would be the worst. It was the real day that Jesus died. There would be the sixth hour and the ninth hour. Perhaps there would be a darkness.