But
Mr. Kennedy expected also that he and she should always dine together
on Sundays, that there should be no guests, and that there should be
no evening company. After all, the demand was not very severe, but
yet she found that it operated injuriously upon her comfort. The
Sundays were very wearisome to her, and made her feel that her lord
and master was--her lord and master. She made an effort or two to
escape, but the efforts were all in vain. He never spoke a cross word
to her. He never gave a stern command. But yet he had his way. "I
won't say that reading a novel on a Sunday is a sin," he said; "but
we must at any rate admit that it is a matter on which men disagree,
that many of the best of men are against such occupation on Sunday,
and that to abstain is to be on the safe side." So the novels were
put away, and Sunday afternoon with the long evening became rather
a stumbling-block to Lady Laura.
Those two hours, moreover, with her husband in the morning became
very wearisome to her. At first she had declared that it would be her
greatest ambition to help her husband in his work, and she had read
all the letters from the MacNabs and MacFies, asking to be made
gaugers and landing-waiters, with an assumed interest. But the work
palled upon her very quickly.
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