The long talk projected by Canon Morchard was impracticable on a Sunday, always his busiest day, until evening.
As the Canon rose from the late, and scrupulously cold, evening meal, he said:
“Daughters, you will not sit up beyond your usual hour. Adrian, my dear—come.”
The door of the study shut, and Lucilla and Flora remained in the drawing-room.
Lucilla occupied herself with note-books and works of reference, and Flora, in the exquisite copper-plate handwriting that the Canon had insisted upon for all his children, in close imitation of his own, wrote out an abstract of her father’s sermon, as she had done almost every Sunday evening ever since she could remember.
The silence was unbroken till nearly an hour later, when Lucilla observed:
“Do you know, Flossie, that Father’s book is very nearly finished? There are only two more chapters to revise.”
“‘Leonidas of Alexandria,’” said Flora thoughtfully.
The subject of the Canon’s exhaustive researches and patient compilations was known to the household.
“He’ll publish it, of course?”