"It is exactly two minutes to eight," she said sharply. "I asked you to ring the bell, Katharine."
The girl walked across the room in a leisurely manner, and did as she was told with a great assumption of doing as she wished. Then she sat on the arm of the nearest chair, and the rebellious look returned to her face.
"How do you know it is daddy's fault, Aunt Esther? The Stoke road is awfully bad, and it's blowing hard from the north-west. He may have been kept, and cold soup's beastly. I think it's a shame."
"I really wish," complained Miss Esther, "that you would try and control your expressions, Katharine. It all comes of your romping so much with young Morton. Of course I am a mere cipher in my own house; but some day your father will be sorry that he did not listen to me in time. Can you never remember that you are not a boy?"
"I am not likely to forget," muttered Katharine. "I should not be sticking in this stupid old place if I were. I should be working hard for daddy, so that he could live with his books and be happy, instead of grinding his life away for people who only want to get all they can out of him. What's the use of being a girl? Things are so stupidly arranged, it seems to me!"
"My dear," said Miss Esther, who had only caught the end of her speech, "it is difficult to believe that your father is one of God's chosen ministers."
"But he isn't," objected Katharine. "That's just it. They made him go into the church because there was a family living; so how on earth could he have been chosen? Why, you told me so yourself, Aunt Esther! It's all rubbish about being chosen, isn't it?"
"Don't chatter so much," said Miss Esther, who was counting her stitches; and Katharine sighed petulantly.
"I can't think," she went on to herself, "how he was ever weak enough to give in. He must have been absent-minded when they ordained him, and never discovered it until afterwards! Don't you think so, Dorcas?"
But Dorcas, who had only just brought in the soup, was hardly in a position to make the necessary reply; and Katharine had to content herself with laughing softly at her own joke. The meal passed almost in silence, and they had nearly finished before they heard the sound of wheels on the wet gravel outside. Miss Esther looked up, and listened with her chronic air of disapproval.