Evidently her life was not to be all hard work.
She ventured into the drawing-room after the hot and heavy meal, but found that Sunday afternoon was by common consent given up to repose.
Miss Lillicrap and Miss Forster both went to their rooms, little Mrs. Clarence, sunk into an arm-chair with a library novel, fell asleep at once, and snored faintly from time to time; Mrs. Bulteel disposed herself elegantly upon the drawing-room sofa, and said to Lydia:
“I hope you don’t mind me having my toes up like this?”
“Oh, no, indeed.”
“I’m not very strong. My husband and my son go for a walk on Sunday afternoons, but I’m not very strong.”
Mrs. Bulteel closed her eyes complacently, and also went to sleep.
Lydia took her fountain-pen from her pocket, having first sampled the pens on the writing-table, and found them all very old, rather rusty, and either broken or cross-nibbed, and wrote a letter to Aunt Beryl. She gave full details of Miss Nettleship’s good-nature, and of her visit from Miss Graham, and even reported a little of her conversation with Miss Forster, the friend of Sir Rupert and Lady Honoret. She said nothing at all about the Greek gentleman.
The evening meal, at seven o’clock on week-days, was not until half-past eight on Sundays, and Miss Nettleship, after entertaining Lydia to tea in her own room, took her to church at six o’clock, talking all the way.
Lydia was bored, and in church began to feel rather homesick and apprehensive of her first day’s work on the morrow.