A drowsy peace settled on the house. Edward Webb, too, had a nap. Grace read demurely in the breakfast-room, and Theresa sat on the kitchen fender when Bessie, having washed up the dinner things by a miracle of speed, had emerged to the light of day. Theresa always tried to catch a glimpse of her on these occasions, for she could never feel that this was the same person who, moving amid dimness, clad in drab colours, besmirched with black, had cooked the breakfast; for on Sunday and the weekly night out she seemed to leave herself in her bedroom and bring forth a cruder creature, gowned in bright blue, and shadowless. Theresa felt that she did not know this person, that the real Bessie was upstairs in her room, and she pictured a being without body, but with the form of it, as much like a skeleton leaf as a human being could be, sitting on the edge of the bed until the blue girl should return. And when dusk fell she avoided the topmost landing of the tall house, for she was afraid of what Bessie had left up there. This afternoon Theresa escorted her to the door. "Are you going to have tea with Bill?" she asked. "Yes; but I'm going to Sunday-school first." "Is it nice there?" "Most times." "Could I come with you some day?" "You'll 'ave to ask your mother." "I wish I could go to Sunday-school. Why don't we?" "_I_ don't know. I'll be late. Good-bye, Miss Terry!" "Don't forget the things Bill tells you," she shouted after her. As she returned to the kitchen she was aware of a grievance which had not troubled her before, and when her father, waking, wandered about the house until he found her, she looked at him with a reproachful face. "Well, Cinderella?" "I've been thinking," she said. "Yes?" "Why don't we go to church? And why don't we sing hymns on Sunday evening? And why don't we have a family Bible? They do in books, with all the birthdays in. We haven't got one. Other fathers and mothers read out of a big Bible to their children." He sat down and drew her to his knee. "I'll tell you why, Theresa. I think you are old enough now to understand. If you want to read the Bible, you shall do so, just as I have given you other books to read when you have asked for them. If I had made you read the Bible, you wouldn't have loved it--it would have been like medicine to you--and I want you to love it, as I do. When I was a little boy, your grandmother made me read a chapter every night. I didn't understand it, and I was generally too tired to try." "Was she very strict--grandmother?" "She was a good woman." "Did you like her?" "Yes, Theresa, I did, but for many years I hated that book, and I made up my mind that my little girls should only read it when they wanted to." Blown by winds of imagination, Theresa veered from the subject. "What was grandfather like? Was he nice?"