She swallowed her anger and her shame, bowing her dark head.
"I'm sure she was trying hard," said the mother.
"She hasn't got sense even to boil the potatoes," said Edgar.

"What is she kept at home for ?" "On'y for eating everything that's left in th' pantry," said Maurice.
"They don't forget that potato-pie against our Miriam," laughed the father.
She was utterly humiliated.

The mother sat in silence, suffering, like some saint out of place at the brutal board.
It puzzled Paul.

He wondered vaguely why all this intense feeling went running because of a few burnt potatoes.

The mother exalted everything--even a bit of housework--to the plane of a religious trust.
The sons resented this; they felt themselves cut away underneath, and they answered with brutality and also with a sneering superciliousness.
Paul was just opening out from childhood into manhood.