"Oh," said she, "you are the schoolmaster at Walford?" She seemed to be pleased by this discovery, and smiled in a very engaging way as she said, "I am much interested in that school, for I received a great part of my education there." "Indeed!" said I, very much surprised. "But I do not exactly understand. It is a boys' school."
"I know that," she answered, "but both boys and girls used to go there. Now the girls have a school of their own."
As she spoke I could not help contrasting in my mind what the school must have been with what it was now.
She stepped to the door and told a woman who was just entering the room to show me No. 2. The woman said something which I did not hear, although her tones indicated surprise, and then conducted me to my room.
This was an exceedingly pleasant chamber on the first floor at the back of the house. It was furnished far better than the quarters generally allotted to me in country inns, or, in fact, in hostelries of any kind. There was great comfort and even simple elegance in its appointments.
I would have liked to ask the maid some questions, but she was an elderly woman, who looked as if she might be the mother of the lemon-juice boy, and as she said not a word to me while she made a few arrangements in the room, I did not feel emboldened to say anything to her.
When I left my room and went out on the little porch, I soon came to the conclusion that this was not a house of great resort. I saw nobody in front and I heard nobody within. There seemed to be an air of quiet greenness about the surroundings, and the little porch was a charming place in which to sit and look upon the evening landscape.
After a time the boy came to tell me that supper was ready. He did so as if he were informing me that it was time to take medicine and he had just taken his.
Supper awaited me in a very pleasant room, through the open windows of which there came a gentle breeze which made me know that there was a flower-garden not far away. The table was a small one, round, and on it there was supper for one person. I seated myself, and the elderly woman waited on me. I was so grateful that the boy was not my attendant that my heart warmed towards her, and I thought she might not consider it much out of the way if I said something.
"Did I arrive after the regular supper-time?" I asked. "I am sorry if I put the establishment to any inconvenience."