might be the reason why there always seemed to me a slight graveyard
flavour--scarcely perceptible, but none the less surely there--about
this room which caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever I crossed
its threshold.

Lady Chillington's black eyes--large, cold and steady as Juno's own--had
been bent upon me all this time, measuring me from head to foot with
what I felt to be a slightly contemptuous scrutiny.

"What is your name, and how old are you?" she asked, with startling
abruptness, after a minute or two of silence.

"Janet Hope, and twelve years," I answered, laconically. A feeling of
defiance, of dislike to this bedizened old woman began to gnaw my
child's heart. Young as I was, I had learned, with what bitterness I
alone could have told, the art of wrapping myself round with a husk of
cold reserve, which no one uninitiated in the ways of children could
penetrate, unless I were inclined to let them. Sulkiness was the
generic name for this quality at school, but I dignified it with a
different term.

"How many years were you at Park Hill Seminary? and where did you live
before you went there?" asked Lady Chillington.

"I have lived at Park Hill ever since I can remember anything. I don't
know where I lived before that time."

"Are your parents alive or dead? If the latter, what do you remember of
them?"