"Oh, I am glad I did not live then!" said Lucy, fetching a deep breath; "yet it is very pleasant to hear these stories of people who lived just before we did; and there is no harm in liking it, is there, grandmamma?"
"None in the least, my child," said grandmamma; "the persons who remember anything of those times are getting fewer and fewer every day. If young people, then, are wise, instead of always talking their own talk, as they are too apt to do, they will have a pleasure in listening to old persons, and in gathering up from them all they can tell of manners and customs, the very memories of which are now passing away. But now, Henry, my boy, you may understand why the Mistresses Vaughan always breakfasted in their own rooms; they never chose to appear but in their full dress, and were glad to get an hour or two every morning unlaced, and without their hoops.
"About noon they all came swimming and sailing down into a large saloon, where they spent the rest of their morning. It was a vast low room, with bright polished oaken floors, and with only a bit of fine carpet in the middle of it. They each brought with them a bag for knotting, and they generally sat together in such state till it was time for their airing.
"This airing was taken in a coach-and-four; and they generally went the same road and turned at the same
place every day but Sunday throughout the week. They dined at two, and drank tea at five; for though they had some visitors who came to tea, they were too high to return these visits. They finished every evening by playing at quadrille; supped at nine, and then retired to their rooms."
"What tiresome people!" said Henry; "how could they spend such lives? I would much rather live with John Trueman, and help to thatch, than have been with them."
"But how did they spend their Sundays, grandmamma?" asked Emily.
"They went to church in Reading," answered the old lady; "where they had a grand pew lined with crimson cloth. They never missed going twice; they came in their coach-and-four; they did not knot on Sundays, but I can hardly say what they did beside."
Lucy fetched a deep breath again, and grandmamma went on.
"It was to this house, and to be under the care of these ladies, that little Miss Evelyn came, the day after her father's funeral. She was nearly broken-hearted.