Well, I took it to mean when the woman came in from hunting, too, which I don't care for because I don't like hunting; but, now that I've read the other responses, I can just see the dutiful, voluptuous woman waiting with smoking jacket, etc. And, reading it in my book of quotes, along with others of his, I can see my first interpretation was wrong. Pooh!

Here's one for you: "It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." Samuel Johnson

katlaughing