Marjory saw the eyes of mother and daughter travel over her person from head to foot--or rather, as she expressed it to herself, from hat to shoes--and she felt as if that cold scrutiny would shrivel her up. She herself, although she did not stare, quickly took in the details of Mrs. Hilary Forester's very fashionable attire. She had never seen anything like it in Heathermuir before. The ladies at Morristown always seemed to her to be very grandly dressed, but nothing like this.
"I wonder if she is at all religious," was Marjory's mental comment. To her mind, a display of finery was not compatible with what she called religion.
Then her eyes fell upon Blanche's mother. She too was richly dressed, but Marjory knew without being told that her clothes were in much better taste than those of her visitor. Still, Marjory had never looked upon Mrs. Forester as very religious; for the child had somehow come to understand the word as being synonymous with sour looks, long faces, unattractive clothes, and disapproval of most pleasant things. Mrs. Forester was sweet and good and kind, and much nicer than any of the people whom Lisbeth had pointed out to her as "releegious."
Marjory had yet to learn that religion is a life, not a profession; that in its reality it is a wellspring of cheerfulness, of love and charity for others, of praise and thanksgiving--a life which, instead of holding itself aloof from the world as a wicked place, lives in it, works for its good, believing that nothing which God has created can be altogether wicked. Mrs. Forester and Miss Waspe were gradually suggesting these new ideas to the girl, more perhaps by example than by precept.
Marjory followed Miss Maud into church. She did not much like the look of her, she decided. Waspy had said one must never judge hastily of people, but she did not feel that she was going to like this girl; even her back view looked stuck-up!
It really did; for Maud could never forget that she was Miss Hilary Forester, and she gave a self-satisfied little waggle to her skirts as she walked, which said very plainly, "Look at me! Don't I strike you as being more attractive than most girls?"
This attitude on Maud's part was hardly to be wondered at, seeing that she had been spoiled and petted all her life. Everything that she said and did was extravagantly praised by her adoring mother, and she had grown up with exaggerated ideas of her cleverness, her looks, and her own importance. What wonder, then, that the poor child held her head high and waggled her skirts? But Marjory knew nothing of these causes, and, seeing only their effects, her feelings towards the newcomer had not softened at all by the time church was over.