Explore "The Shootings of Achnaleish" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The dining-room windows, both front and back, the one looking into Oakley Street, the other into a small backyard with three sooty shrubs in it (known as the garden), were all open, so that the table stood in midstream of such air as there was. But in spite of this the heat was stifling, since, for once in a way, July had remembered that it was the duty of good little summers to be hot. Hot in consequence it had been: heat reverberated from the house-walls, it rose through the boot from the paving-stones, it poured down from a large superheated sun that walked the sky all day long in a benignant and golden manner. Dinner was over, but the small party of four who had eaten it still lingered.
Mabel Armytage -- it was she who had laid down the duty of good little summers -- spoke first.