The thought of this avenue to fortune gave her fortitude. She braced
herself up, and set herself valourously to unriddle the perplexities of a
nocturne by Chopin.

'After all I have only to work on steadily,' she told herself; 'there
will come an end to my slavery.'

Presently she began to laugh to herself softly:

'I wonder whether old Pew has looked at my caricatures,' she thought,
'and whether she'll treat me any worse on account of them?'

She finished her hour's practice, put her music back into her portfolio,
which lived in an ancient canterbury under the ancient piano, and went to
the room where she slept, in company with seven other spirits, as
mischievous and altogether evilly disposed as her own.

Mauleverer Manor had not been built for a school, or it would hardly have
been called a manor. There were none of those bleak, bare dormitories,
specially planned for the accommodation of thirty sleepers--none of those
barrack-like rooms which strike desolation to the soul. With the
exception of the large classroom which had been added at one end of the
house, the manor was very much as it had been in the days of the
Mauleverers, a race now as extinct as the Dodo. It was a roomy, rambling
old house of the time of the Stuarts, and bore the date of its erection
in many unmistakable peculiarities. There were fine rooms on the ground
floor, with handsome chimney-pieces and oak panelling. There were small
low rooms above, curious old passages, turns and twists, a short flight
of steps here, and another flight there, various levels, irregularities