that the sun's faint warmth is withdrawn, and that the small and chilly
stars possess the sky. Nevertheless, both the school-room windows are
open. We are all huddled shivering round the hearth, yet no one talks of
closing them. The fact is, that amateur cooking, though a graceful
accomplishment, has its penalties, and that at the present moment the
smell of broiled bones and fried potatoes that fills our place of
learning is something appalling. Why may not it penetrate beneath the
swing-door, through the passages, and reach the drawing-room? Such a
thing has happened once or twice before. At the bare thought we all
quake. I am in the pleasant situation, just at present, of owning a
chilled body and a blazing face.

Chiefest among the cooks have I been, and now I am sitting trying to fan
my red cheeks and redder nose, with the back of an old atlas, gutted in
some ancient broil, trying, in deference to Sir Roger, to cool down my
appearance a little against prayer-time. Alas! that epoch is nearer than
I think. Ting! tang! the loud bell is ringing through the house. My hair
is loosened and tumbled with stooping over the fire, and I have burnt a
hole right in the fore front of my gown, by letting a hot cinder fall
from the grate upon it. There is, however, now no time to repair these
dilapidations. We issue from our lair, and _en route_ meet the long
string of servants filing from their distant regions. How is it that the
cook's face is so much, _much_ less red than mine? Prayers are held in
the justicing-room, and thither we are all repairing. The accustomed
scene bursts on my eye. At one end the long, straight row of the
servants, immovably devout, staring at the wall, with their backs to us.
In the middle of the room, facing them, father, kneeling upon a chair
with his hands clutched, and his eyes closed, repeating the church
prayers, as if he were rather angry with them than otherwise. Mother,
kneeling on the carpet beside him, like the faithful, ruffed, and