There were a number of ill-nourished-looking daughters, sensible
and economical in their costume, the younger still with long,
brown-stockinged legs, and the eldest present--there were, we
discovered, one or two hidden away--displaying a large gold cross
and other aggressive ecclesiastical symbols; there were two or three
fox-terriers, a retrieverish mongrel, and an old, bloody-eyed and very
evil-smelling St. Bernard. There was a jackdaw. There was, moreover, an
ambiguous, silent lady that my aunt subsequently decided must be a very
deaf paying guest. Two or three other people had concealed themselves at
our coming and left unfinished teas behind them. Rugs and cushions lay
among the chairs, and two of the latter were, I noted, covered with
Union Jacks.
The vicar introduced us sketchily, and the faded Victorian wife regarded
my aunt with a mixture of conventional scorn and abject respect,
and talked to her in a languid, persistent voice about people in the
neighbourhood whom my aunt could not possibly know.
My aunt received these personalia cheerfully, with her blue eyes
flitting from point to point, and coming back again and again to the
pinched faces of the daughters and the cross upon the eldest's breast.
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