wrought-iron gates in the front had been boarded up, and Albury
Lodge was now approached by a little wooden side-door into a stone-
flagged covered passage that led to a small door at the end of the
house. The omnibus-driver deposited me at this door, with all my
worldly possessions, which at this period of my life consisted of
two rather small boxes and a japanned dressing-case, a receptacle
that contained all my most sacred treasures.

I was admitted by a rather ill-tempered-looking housemaid, with a
cap of obtrusive respectability and a spotless white apron. I
fancied that she looked just a little superciliously at my boxes,
which I daresay would not have contained her own wardrobe.

'O, it's the governess-pupil, I suppose?' she said. 'You was
expected early this afternoon, miss. Miss Bagshot and Miss Susan are
gone out to tea; but I can show you where you are to sleep, if
you'll please to step this way. Do you think you could carry one of
your trunks, if I carry the other?'

I thought I could; so the housemaid and I lugged them all the way
along the stone passage and up an uncarpeted back staircase which
led from the lobby into which the door at the end of the passage
opened. We went very high up, to the top story in fact, where the
housemaid led me into a long bare room with ten little beds in it. I
was well enough accustomed to the dreariness of a school dormitory,
but somehow this room looked unusually dismal.

There was a jet of gas burning at one end of the room, near a door
opening into a lavatory which was little more than a cupboard, but
in which ten young ladies had to perform their daily ablutions. Here