HANNAH (looking with better eyes than her mistress at the large ormolu clock which records eternally the time of the great Exhibition). Almost a quarter to six, Ma'am.
JULIA. So late? She ought to have been here long ago.
HANNAH. Who, Ma'am, did you say, Ma'am?
JULIA. My sister, Mrs. James. You remember?
HANNAH. What, Miss Martha, Ma'am? Well!
JULIA. No, it's Miss Laura this time: you didn't know she had married, I suppose?
HANNAH (with a world of meaning, well under control). No, Ma'am. (A pause.) I made up the bed in the red room; was that right, Ma'am?
JULIA (archly surprised). What? Then you knew someone was coming?
Why did you pretend, Hannah?
HANNAH. Well, Ma'am, you see, you hadn't told me before.
JULIA. I couldn't. One cannot always be sure. (This mysteriously.) But something tells me now that she is to be with us. I have been expecting her over four days.