(I) The Rectory garden at Merefield was, obviously, this summer, the proper place to spend most of the day.

Certainly the house was cool--it was one of those long, low, creeper-covered places that somehow suggest William IV.

and crinolines (if it is a fact that those two institutions flourished together, as I think), with large, darkish rooms and wide, low staircases and tranquil-looking windows through which roses peep; but the shadow of the limes and the yews was cooler still.

A table stood almost permanently through those long, hot summer days in the place where Dick had sat with Jenny, and here the Rector and his daughter breakfasted, lunched and dined, day after day, for a really extraordinarily long period.
Jenny herself lived in the garden even more than her father; she got through the household business as quickly as possible after breakfast, and came out to do any small businesses that she could during the rest of the morning.

She wrote a few letters, read a few books, sewed a little, and, on the whole, presented a very domestic and amiable picture.