“It’s disgraceful!” cried Ursula at dinner. “People will think we’re pigs, and the children are never washed.” “Never mind what people think,” said the mother superbly. “I see that the child is bathed properly, and if I satisfy myself I satisfy everybody. She can’t keep her stocking up and no garter, and it isn’t the child’s fault she was let to go without one.” The garter trouble continued in varying degrees, but till each child wore long skirts or long trousers, it was not removed. On this day of decorum, the Brangwen family went to church by the high-road, making a detour outside all the garden-hedge, rather than climb the wall into the churchyard. There was no law of this, from the parents. The children themselves were the wardens of the Sabbath decency, very jealous and instant with each other. It came to be, gradually, that after church on Sundays the house was really something of a sanctuary, with peace breathing like a strange bird alighted in the rooms. Indoors, only reading and tale-telling and quiet pursuits, such as drawing, were allowed. Out of doors, all playing was to be carried on unobtrusively. If there were noise, yelling or shouting, then some fierce spirit woke up in the father and the elder children, so that the younger were subdued, afraid of being excommunicated. The children themselves preserved the Sabbath. If Ursula in her vanity sang: “Il était un’ bergère Et ron-ron-ron petit patapon,” Theresa was sure to cry: “_That’s_ not a Sunday song, our Ursula.” “You don’t know,” replied Ursula, superior. Nevertheless, she wavered. And her song faded down before she came to the end. Because, though she did not know it, her Sunday was very precious to her. She found herself in a strange, undefined place, where her spirit could wander in dreams, unassailed. The white-robed spirit of Christ passed between olive trees. It was a vision, not a reality. And she herself partook of the visionary being. There was the voice in the night calling, “Samuel, Samuel!” And still the voice called in the night. But not this night, nor last night, but in the unfathomed night of Sunday, of the Sabbath silence. There was Sin, the serpent, in whom was also wisdom. There was Judas with the money and the kiss. But there was no _actual_ Sin. If Ursula slapped Theresa across the face, even on a Sunday, that was not Sin, the everlasting. It was misbehaviour. If Billy played truant from Sunday school, he was bad, he was wicked, but he was not a Sinner. Sin was absolute and everlasting: wickedness and badness were temporary and relative. When Billy, catching up the local jargon, called Cassie a “sinner”, everybody detested him. Yet when there came to the Marsh a flippetty-floppetty foxhound puppy, he was mischievously christened “Sinner”.