Chapter Five
IM iss Marple awoke early because she always woke early. She was appreciative¹ of her bed. Most comfortable.
She pattered across to the window and pulled the curtains, admitting a little pallid² London daylight. As yet,however, she did not try to dispense³ with the electric light. A very nice bedroom they had given her, again quite in thetradition of Bertram’s. A rose-flowered wallpaper, a large well-polished mahogany chest of drawers—a dressing⁴ tableto correspond. Two upright chairs, one easy chair of a reasonable height from the ground. A connecting door led to abathroom which was modern but which had a tiled wallpaper of roses and so avoided any suggestion of over-frigidhygiene.
Miss Marple got back into bed, plumped her pillows up, glanced at her clock, half past seven, picked up the smalldevotional book that always accompanied her, and read as usual the page and a half allotted⁵ to the day. Then shepicked up her knitting and began to knit, slowly at first, since her fingers were stiff and rheumatic when she firstawoke, but very soon her pace grew faster, and her fingers lost their painful stiffness.
“Another day,” said Miss Marple to herself, greeting the fact with her usual gentle pleasure. Another day—andwho knew what it might bring forth⁶?
She relaxed, and abandoning her knitting, let thoughts pass in an idle stream through her head…Selina Hazy⁷…what a pretty cottage she had had in St. Mary Mead—and now someone had put on that ugly green roof…Muffins…very wasteful⁸ in butter…but very good…And fancy serving old-fashioned seed cake! She had never expected, not fora moment, that things would be as much like they used to be…because, after all, Time didn’t stand still…And to havemade it stand still in this way must really have cost a lot of money…Not a bit of plastic in the place!…It must paythem, she supposed. The out-of-date returns in due course as the picturesque…Look how people wanted old-fashionedroses now, and scorned

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