It was half-past nine o'clock in the morning. The midsummer sun was
already warm on the roofs and weathercocks of Milby. The church-bells
were ringing, and many families were conscious of Sunday sensations,
chiefly referable to the fact that the daughters had come down to
breakfast in their best frocks, and with their hair particularly well
dressed. For it was not Sunday, but Wednesday; and though the Bishop was
going to hold a Confirmation, and to decide whether or not there should
be a Sunday evening lecture in Milby, the sunbeams had the usual
working-day look to the haymakers already long out in the fields, and to
laggard weavers just 'setting up' their week's 'piece'. The notion of its
being Sunday was the strongest in young ladies like Miss Phipps, who was
going to accompa
