Godwin and Wordsworth
Notes
Shakespeare



A BAD DREAM



Miss Toller, a lady about forty years old, kept a boarding-house,
called Russell House, at Brighton, in a dull but genteel part of the
town--so dull that even those fortunate inhabitants who were reputed
to have resources in themselves were relieved by a walk to the shops
or by a German band. Miss Toller could not afford to be nearer the
front. Rents were too high for her, even in the next street, which
claimed a sea-view sideways through the bow-windows. She was the
daughter of a farmer in Northamptonshire, and till she came to
Brighton had lived at home. When she was five-and-twenty her mother
died, and in two years her father married again. The second wife
was a widow, good-looking but hard, and had a temper. She made
herself very disagreeable to Miss Toller, and the husband took the
wife's part. Miss Toller therefore left the farm at Barton Sluice,
and with a little money that belonged to her purchased the goodwill
and furniture of Russell House. She brought with her a
Northamptonshire girl as servant, and the two shared the work
between them. At the time when this history begins she had five
lodgers, all of whom had been with her six months, and one for more
than a year.