Rhoda was not strong, like Cassie and Zoe. She was often tired, as she sat there in the window-corner. She could not always touch the huge smoking heaps that came to table. When all the knives and forks and voices clattered together, they seemed to go through her head. The bells and laughter made her start. She would nervously listen for the boys' feet clattering down the stairs. At Church House there was a fresh silence. You could hear the birds chirruping in the garden all the time Lady Sarah was reading aloud. There were low comfortable seats covered with faded old chintz and tapestry. There were Court ladies hanging on the walls. One wore a pearl necklace; she had dark bright eyes, and Rhoda used to look at her, and think her like herself, and wonder. There were books to read and times to read them at Church House, and there was Dolly always thinking how to give Rhoda pleasure. If she exacted a certain fealty and obedience from the little maiden, her rule was different from Aunt Morgan's. Dolly had no sheets to sew, no dusty cupboards to put straight, no horrible boys' shirts to front or socks to darn and darn and darn, while their owners were disporting themselves out of doors, and making fresh work for the poor little Danaides at home. To Dolly, Old Street seemed a delightful place. She never could understand why Rhoda was so unhappy there. It seemed to Dolly only too delightful, for George was for ever going there when he was at home. The stillness of Church House, its tranquil order and cheerful depression, used to weary the boy; perhaps it was natural enough. Unless, as Rhoda was, they are constitutionally delicate, boys and girls don't want to bask all day long like jelly-fish in a sunny calm; they want to tire themselves, to try their lungs; noise and disorder are to them like light and air, wholesome tonics with which they brace themselves for the coming struggles of life. Later in life there are sometimes quite old girls and boys whose vitality cannot be repressed. They go up mountains and drive steam-engines. They cry out in print, since it would no longer be seemly for them to shriek at the pitch of their voices, or to set off running, violently, or to leap high in the air. 'The Morgans' certainly meant plenty of noise and cheerful clatter, the short tramp of schoolboy feet, huge smoking dishes liberally dispensed. John Morgan would rush in pale, breathless, and over-worked; in a limp white neckcloth as befitted his calling, he would utter a breathless blessing on the food, and begin hastily to dispense the smoking heap before him. 'Take care, John, dear,' cries Mrs. Morgan. 'What? where?' says John. 'Why, George! come to lunch? Just in time.'