Читать книгу Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph - Frances Chamberlaine Sheridan - Страница 31

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All our motions here are as regular as the clock. The family rise at six; we are summoned to breakfast at eight; at ten a venerable congregation are assembled to prayers, which an ancient clergyman, who is curate of the parish, and her ladyship’s chaplain, gives us daily. Then the old horses are put to the old coach; and my lady, with her guests, if they chuse it, take an airing; always going and returning by the same road, and driving precisely to the same land-mark, and no farther. At half an hour after twelve, in a hall large enough to entertain a corporation, we sit down to dinner; my lady has a grace of a quarter of an hour long, and we are waited on by four truly venerable footmen, for she likes state. The afternoon we may dispose of as we please; at least it is a liberty I am indulged in, and I generally spend my time in the garden, or my own chamber, till I have notice given me of supper’s being on the table, where we are treated with the same ceremonials as at dinner. At ten exactly, the instant the clock strikes the first stroke, my lady rises with great solemnity, and wishes us a good night.