water, if you please, Robert."

He felt rather relieved when dinner was over, and retired at once to
his own rooms; where, making a rather quiet and sudden entrance, he
found them tenanted by an old woman, who wore a huge bonnet tilted on
the top of her head, and was busily and dubiously engaged at one of
his open boxes. "Ahem!" he coughed, at which note of warning the old
lady jumped round very quickly, and said, - dabbing curtseys where
there were stops, like the beats of a conductor's ~baton~, - "Law
bless me, sir. It's beggin' your parding that I am. Not seein' you
a comin' in. Bein' 'ard of hearin' from a hinfant. And havin' my
back turned. I was just a puttin' your things to rights, sir. If
you please, sir, I'm Mrs. Tester. Your bed-maker, sir."

"Oh, thank you," said our freshman, with the shadow of a suspicion that
Mrs. Tester was doing something more than merely "putting to rights"
the pots of jam and marmalade, and the packages of tea and coffee,
which his doting mother had thoughtfully placed in his box as a
provision against immediate distress. "Thank you."

"I've done my rooms, sir," dabbed Mrs. Tester. "Which if thought
agreeable, I'd stay and put these things in their places. Which it
certainly is Robert's place. But I never minds putting myself out.
As I always perpetually am minded. So long as I can obleege the
gentlemen."

So, as our hero was of a yielding disposition, and could, under
skilful hands, easily be moulded into any form, he allowed Mrs.
Tester to remain, and conclude the unpacking and putting away of his
goods, in which operations she displayed great generalship.