twenty minutes to eleven on Sunday mornings
To begin with it was not an ecclesiastical building at all , but simply a big room in the basement of the Hôtel Anglais . The walls had been exquisitely decorated by a French artist with conventionalized designs of iris in purple and gold , and through the windows there was a gorgeous peep over the bay . The girls used to exercise much maneuvering to secure the seats with the best view , and somehow that bright stretch of the Mediterranean seemed to blend in as part and parcel of all the praise and thanksgiving that was being offered . Punctually at twenty minutes to eleven on Sunday mornings the fifty-six pupils and the seven mistresses would leave the great gate of the Villa Camellia and march into the town , along the esplanade under the grove of palm trees , then through the beautiful sheltered garden of the Hôtel Anglais , where many exotic flowers and shrubs were blooming and the white arum lilies were like an Easter festival , to the doorway , under the jessamine-covered veranda , that led to the _ Eglise anglaise et américaine _ . The school practically made half the congregation , but there were visitors from the various hotels , and a sprinkling of British residents who had houses at Fossato . When the service was over there followed a very pleasant quarter of an hour in the piazza of the hotel ; the clergyman and his wife would speak personally to many of the girls , and any of the pupils who met friends were allowed to talk to them . Fossato was a popular week-end resort from Naples , so relatives often turned up on Sundays and there were many joyous reunions .