All those years he had striven and his apparent harshness, sharpness, unkindness had been that he might pursue his great object.
She did not cry (some of the villagers curiously watching her thought her a hard-hearted little thing), but her heart was full of tenderness as she stood there, seeing the humped grey church that was part of her life, the green mounds with no name, the dark wood, the grey roofs of the village clustered below the hill, hearing the bell, the rooks, the healthy voice of Mr.Trefusis, the bark of some distant dog, the creak of some distant wheel.
"I missed my chance," she thought.

"If only now I could have told him!" Her aunt stood at her side and once again Maggie felt irritation at her composure.

"After all, he was her brother," she thought.

She remembered the feeling and passion with which her aunt had repeated the Twenty-third Psalm.

She was puzzled.
A moment of shrinking came upon her as she thought of the coming London life.
Then the service was over.