"Am I keeping you awake?"
"No. I sighed because you're so different to me. I couldn't wash to-night. And I knew my hair'd be a mat in the morning and the pillow pink from my cheeks."
"I wish you didn't paint. There's no harm in girls doing it if they need it, but you spoil yourself."
"Force of habit. Mother made up my face from the time I was ten."
Alexandra in her nightdress knelt down at the side of her bed. Maggy never said prayers. To see Alexandra say them, she said, was the nearest she would ever get to such things. She had never been taught to pray when a child.
"Might as well drop Him a hint that we're at the end of our tether," she suggested presently.
When Alexandra rose from her knees Maggy was sitting up in bed watching her, her hands clasping her legs.
"And you mean to say that you believe somebody hears you!" she said wonderingly.
"Yes."
"And does what you ask?"