Please, mamma, come home!" and I found it not easy to quiet him.

Presently, mustering courage for myself also, I ventured to express my
wish for a quiet house or apartments, where I might be free from
intrusion, and at perfect liberty before and after school-hours.

When this reasonable request was interpreted to him--seemingly in a few
monosyllables--he stood looking at me, smiling, as if surprised and
amused that I should have notions on the subject of liberty. Quickly
this look became inquisitive and significant, so that I began to fancy
he had doubts as to the use I might make of my stipulated freedom, and
was puzzled to conjecture why a woman should wish to be free at all.
Some such thought must have passed through his mind, for he said
abruptly, "You not married!"

I bowed.

"Then where will you go in the evening?"

"Not anywhere, your Excellency. I simply desire to secure for myself and
my child some hours of privacy and rest, when my duties do not require
my presence elsewhere."

"How many years your husband has been dead?" he asked.

I replied that his Excellency had no right to pry into my domestic
concerns. His business was with me as a governess only; on any other
subject I declined conversing. I enjoyed the expression of blank
amazement with which he regarded me on receiving this somewhat defiant
reply. "_Tam chai!_" ("Please yourself!") he said, and proceeded to pace