"What is your name, and how old are you?" she asked, with startling abruptness, after a minute or two of silence.
"Janet Hope, and twelve years," I answered, laconically. A feeling of defiance, of dislike to this bedizened old woman began to gnaw my child's heart. Young as I was, I had learned, with what bitterness I alone could have told, the art of wrapping myself round with a husk of cold reserve, which no one uninitiated in the ways of children could penetrate, unless I were inclined to let them. Sulkiness was the generic name for this quality at school, but I dignified it with a different term.
"How many years were you at Park Hill Seminary? and where did you live before you went there?" asked Lady Chillington.
"I have lived at Park Hill ever since I can remember anything. I don't know where I lived before that time."
"Are your parents alive or dead? If the latter, what do you remember of them?"
A lump came into my throat, and tears into my eyes. For a moment or two I could not answer.
"I don't know anything about my parents," I said. "I never remember seeing them. I don't know whether they are alive or dead."
"Do you know why you were consigned by the Park Hill people to this particular house—to Deepley Walls—to me, in fact?"
Her voice was raised almost to a shriek as she said these last words, and she pointed to herself with one claw-like finger.
"No, ma'am, I don't know why I was sent here. I was told to come, and I came."