Needless to say he went, taking with him a large bunch
of violets which he had grown in a frame at the Hall especially for
Barbara. Indeed, she had already received many of those violets through
the agency of her numerous younger sisters.
The Rectory dinner was at one o'clock, and the feast could not be
called sumptuous. It consisted of a piece of beef, that known as the
"aitch-bone," which is perhaps the cheapest that the butcher supplies
when the amount of eating is taken into consideration; one roast duck,
a large Pekin, the Near Year offering of the farmer Stevens; and a plum
pudding somewhat pallid in appearance. These dainties with late apples
and plenty of cold water made up the best dinner that the Walrond family
had eaten for many a day.
The Rectory dining-room was a long, narrow chamber of dilapidated
appearance, since between meals it served as a schoolroom also. A deal
bookcase in the corner held some tattered educational works and the
walls that once had been painted blue, but now were faded in patches
to a sickly green, were adorned only with four texts illuminated by
Barbara. These texts had evidently served as targets for moistened paper
pellets, some of which still stuck upon their surface.
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