feet by one and a half) at which they were accustomed to eat. The
rice being ready, it was turned out in two proportions; made savoury
with a little butter, pepper, and salt, it invited them to sit down.

As they had been out in the morning, the afternoon would be spent in
domestic occupations. The low cane-chair Virginia had appropriated
to her sister, because of the latter's headaches and backaches, and
other disorders; she herself sat on an ordinary chair of the bedside
species, to which by this time she had become used. Their sewing,
when they did any, was strictly indispensable; if nothing demanded
the needle, both preferred a book. Alice, who had never been a
student in the proper sense of the word, read for the twentieth time
a few volumes in her possession--poetry, popular history, and half
a dozen novels such as the average mother of children would have
approved in the governess's hands. With Virginia the case was
somewhat different. Up to about her twenty-fourth year she had
pursued one subject with a zeal limited only by her opportunities;
study absolutely disinterested, seeing that she had never supposed
it would increase her value as a 'companion', or enable her to take
any better position. Her one intellectual desire was to know as much
as possible about ecclesiastical history. Not in a spirit of
fanaticism; she was devout, but in moderation, and never spoke
bitterly on religious topics. The growth of the Christian Church,
old sects and schisms, the Councils, affairs of Papal policy--
these things had a very genuine interest for her; circumstances
favouring, she might have become an erudite woman; But the
conditions were so far from favourable that all she succeeded in
doing was to undermine her health. Upon a sudden breakdown there
followed mental lassitude, from which she never recovered. It being
subsequently her duty to read novels aloud for the lady whom she