She slipped out of her clothes and went to bed, and then she lay awake.

She heard her father when he returned.

The clock on a church which was near by struck twelve soon after.

Maria tried to imagine another woman in the house in her mother's place; she thought of every eligible woman in Edgham whom her father might select to fill that place, but her little-girl ideas of eligibility were at fault.

She thought only of women of her mother's age and staidness, who wore bonnets.