were ‘sausages again!’ Harriet knew perfectly well that Aggie hated sausages—nevertheless she persisted, with the devotion of a blind slave to an august ritual, in having, always, sausages for Sunday breakfast. Aggie was, in spite of her tooth, hungry this morning, but when, with an unconscious self-consciousness, during a silence, she said: “No sausage for me, thanks. You know, Betty, that I never care for them.” No one said: “Have an egg, Aggie: it can be boiled in a moment.” Only Harriet, with her attention obviously elsewhere, remarked carelessly: “We can have the ham in, Aggie, if you like”—to which Aggie could only reply: “You know I dislike cold ham, Harriet.” But, indeed, Sunday breakfast was never a very jolly meal—how could it be? The hour was throbbing with a consciousness of the impending difficulties and problems of the day. There was Church, there was Sunday School, there were callers in the afternoon: there were meals, the very heavy midday meal with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, tea with a great deal of stiff conversation, something in the manner of Ollendorff, supper, when the chill on the food typified the exhausted spirits of the tired company. During too many years had Henry, Millie, Katherine, and still more Aggie, Betty and Mrs. Trenchard worn Sunday clothes, eaten Sunday meals, suffered Sunday restraint, known Sunday exhaustion for it to be possible for any of them to regard Sunday in a normal, easy fashion. Very right and proper that they should so regard it. I would only observe that if there _is_ to be a thorough explosion of Trenchard, of Faunder tempers—if there is to be, in any kind of way, a “family scene” Sunday will be, almost certainly, the background selected for it. Aunt Aggie, looking around her, on this morning, at her assembled friends and relations, ‘thought them all very sulky indeed. Wrapped up entirely in their own selfish thoughts’.... The day began badly.