To them she appeared a supernatural
creature--a kind of prophetess, sent upon earth for their correction and
abasement.
On a solid ecclesiastical-looking oak table in one of the windows Miss
Granger had a row of brass-bound money-boxes, inscribed, "For the Home
Mission," "For the Extra Curate Society," and so on--boxes into which Miss
Granger's friends and visitors were expected to drop their mite. Clarissa
felt that if she had been laden down with shillings, she could not for her
very life have approached those formidable boxes to drop one in under Miss
Granger's ken; but, of course, this was a morbid fancy. On another table
there were little piles of material for plain work; so prim, so square,
so geometrically precise, that Clarissa thought the flannel itself looked
cold--a hard, fibrous, cruel fabric, that could never be of use to mortal
flesh except as an irritant.
Miss Granger's bedroom and dressing-room were like Miss Granger's
morning-room. No frivolous mediaevalism here, no dainty upholsterer's work
in many-coloured woods, but solid mahogany, relieved by solemn draperies
of drab damask, in a style which the wise Sophia called unpretentious. The
chief feature in one room was a sewing-machine that looked like a small
church organ, and in the other a monster medicine-chest, from the contents
of which Miss Granger dealt out doses of her own concoction to her
parishioners.
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