So the young people had been thrilled as they took their seats in the large, square building, and they had loved standing up when the compact body of black-coated men, ringed about by their womenfolk and children, rose to receive the venerable Moderator. But the climax was reached when the Assembly, without the accompaniment of any instrument had lifted up its voice in the Old Hundredth. Then Juley, as she sang loudly, had wept with unconcealed joy; and Georgie and Joanna might also have yielded to the surge of emotion had it not been for the smirking scrutiny of Mabel.

When Juley shed tears because of God’s amazing goodness, her face became enraptured; yet at the same time one knew that she rejoiced in her capacity for rapture. The emotion was valid, but she hoped it would not go unremarked, and in the way she looked about her with wet eyes, there was a hint of reproach for the apathetic world in which her ecstasy found itself singular.

To her daughters the perception of all this was bad enough in public places: when it was shared by Mabel it was torture. Mabel, so pretty, dark and sidelong, (when she walked, she actually seemed to advance sideways) would look lingeringly at her Aunt’s face. Then dropping her eyelids she would smile to herself. Soon she would send a liquid glance either way to Georgie and Joanna to make sure that they had observed her amusement. She would know at once by their stony expressions that the shaft of ridicule had gone home.

And now Aunt Georgina had helped them all to soup from a silver tureen. Georgie was sipping hers in what she knew to be the correct way, from the side of the spoon instead of from the tip as she did at home; and Joanna had nervously raised a glass of water to her lips, when she caught her aunt’s eye upon her.

“We don’t usually drink water before our soup, Joanna,” said Mrs. Balmain quietly. “At least,” she added, “I don’t know how you do in Glasgow. In Edinburgh it is thought vulgar to drink immediately before food. Besides it is bad for the stomach.”

Joanna crimsoned and put down her glass untouched. Neither her mother’s kind, grieved glance nor the message of sympathy sent across the table from Georgie’s eyes could salve her wound. Though a murderous hatred of her aunt rose in her, she unhesitatingly condemned herself. She had not known any better than to drink water before food, and now she sat disgraced before them all – particularly before Cousin Irene, for whom that very morning at breakfast she had conceived a violent admiration. Oh! why were she and her family not in keeping with the elegance around them? Why were they not cool and at ease at the luncheon table as Cousin Irene was? Joanna and Georgie had long ago agreed that Cousin Irene was a “softie” and a snob. But at this moment Joanna with her craving for exquisiteness was passionately envious of Irene’s endowments. She felt ashamed, not only of herself but of the others. She looked across at her mother who was encouraging Sholto to finish his soup by blowing upon each spoonful; at Linnet who lounged back in his chair; at Georgie who was being so careful with her tablespoon. And there was Mabel smiling hatefully, with her eyes on her plate. Joanna reminded herself desperately that the Erskines, on one side at least, were of a far more distinguished history than either the Bannermans or the Balmains. But this consideration only added the sting of unfairness to her present sense of inferiority. And she suffered.