CHAPTER XII.
A MISSED VOCATION It was pleasant to wake to bright sunshine the next morning, and to hear the sparrows twittering in the ivy.
It had been my intention to set apart Sunday as much as possible as a day of rest and refreshment.

Of course I could not expect always to control the various appeals for my help or to be free from my patients, but by management I hoped to secure the greater part of the day for myself.
I had told Peggy not to expect me at the cottage until the afternoon; everything was in such order that there was no necessity for me to forgo the morning service.

My promise to Phoebe Locke would keep me a prisoner for the evening, but I determined that her sister and Kitty should be set free to go to church, so my loss would be their gain.
I thought of Jill as I dressed myself.

She had often owned to me that the Sundays at Hyde Park Gate were not to her taste.

Visitors thronged the house in the afternoon; Sara discussed her week's amusements with her friends or yawned over a novel; the morning's sermon was followed as a matter of course by a gay luncheon party.