But I expect Lady Katherine thinks differently about things to Mrs. Carruthers, and the daughters the same.
I shall ask Lord Robert when I see him again if it is a horse or not.
Malcolm is not attractive, and I was glad the church was not far off.
No carriages are allowed out on Sunday, so we had to walk; and coming back it began to rain, and we could not go round the stables, which I understand is the custom here every Sunday.
Everything is done because it is the custom, not because you want to amuse yourself.
"When it rains and we can't go round the stables," Kirstie said, "we look at the old Illustrated London News, and go on our way from afternoon church."
I did not particularly want to do that, so stayed in my room as long as I could. The four girls were seated at a large table in the hall, each with a volume in front of her when I got down at last. They must know every picture by heart, if they do it every Sunday it rains--they stay in England all the winter.
Jean made room for me beside her.
"I am at the 'Sixties,'" she said. "I finished the 'Fifties' last Easter." So they evidently do even this with a method.
I asked her if there were not any new books they wanted to read, but she said Lady Katherine did not care for their looking at magazines or novels unless she had been through them first, and she had not time for many, so they kept the few they had to read between tea and dinner on Sunday.
By this time I felt I should do something wicked; and if the luncheon gong had not sounded, I do not know what would have happened.
Mr. Montgomerie said rather gallant things to me when the cheese and port came along, while the girls looked shocked, and Lady Katherine had a stony stare. I suppose he is like this because he is married. I wonder, though, if young married men are the same. I have never met any yet.
By Monday night I was beginning to feel the end of the world would come soon. It is ten times worse than ever having had to conceal all my feelings and abjectly obey Mrs. Carruthers. Because she did say cynical, entertaining things sometimes to me, and to her friends, that made one laugh. And one felt it was only she who made the people who were dependent upon her do her way, because she herself was so selfish, and that the rest of the world were free if once one got outside.