She'd as well been at school as haking about.

[…] as she sat at her bed-side, indulging melancholy reveries, which the loneliness of the hour assisted […]

The topic of the novel is the typical way of life of the well-to-do British middle and upper classes, and the setting within the British culture is thus of great importance. The Skopos, to use Vermeer's term, is to translate the text as being firmly embedded within the British culture.

Many people are data phobic and unwilling to engage with data to make decisions.