The Reverend Charles forbade the further mention of her
name by any member of his household. This quarrel was a grievous
disappointment to Maggie who had often been promised that when she
should be a good girl she should go and stay with her aunts in
London. She had invented for herself a strange fascinating picture
of the dark, mysterious London house, with London like a magic
cauldron bubbling beyond it. There was moreover the further
strangeness of her aunt's religion. Her father in his anger had
spoken about "their wicked blasphemy," "their insolence in the eyes
of God," "their blindness and ignorant conceit." Maggie had
discovered, on a later day, from her uncle that her aunts belonged
to a sect known as the Kingscote Brethren and that the main feature
of their creed was that they expected the second coming of the Lord
God upon earth at no very distant date.
"Will it really happen, Uncle Mathew?" she asked in an awe-struck
voice when she first heard this.
"It's all bunkum if you ask me," said her uncle. "And it's had a
hardening effect on your aunts who were kind women once, but they're
completely in the hands of the blackguard who runs their chapel,
poor innocents.
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