Hello and welcome to the sleepy book shelf where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book.

In our last episode we read the final pages of The Lead.

This was our longest season yet,

and while it really did take many episodes to complete, I hope you enjoyed following Lucy Snow on her journey to happiness.

In case you fell asleep before we finished, this is a recap of the last episode.

But be warned. This is your spoiler alert.

If you haven't listened to the whole book and you don't want to know how it ends,

then stop this episode now. For the rest of you, I will continue.

A national holiday called off school for the afternoon.

After the pupils had gone to morning mass,

they were due to take a lunch off site,

and Lucy decided to remain behind.

In the vain hope that Monsieur Emmanuel would still come to take leave of her

before he really did leave for the West Indies.

He came, and despite Madame Beck's persistence in trying to lure him away from her,

he asked Lucy to take a walk with him.

He took her outside of Villett to a pretty little house, furnished and decorated beautifully.

It had an adjoining small schoolroom

and he admitted to Lucy

that he had been away from her during this time only because he couldn't ruin the surprise.

He wanted her to have this as her own school and to teach here while she was away.

Words failed to express her gratitude.

...