through the darkness, which I took to be a portion of a snow-clad tree.
After a considerable time, we paused again, before the stately portico of a large house with long windows descending to the ground.
I rose with some difficulty from under the superincumbent snowdrift, and alighted from the carriage, expecting a kind and hospitable reception would indemnify me for the toils and hardships of the day. A gentlemanly person in black opened the door, and admitted me into a spacious hall lighted by an amber-coloured lamp suspended from the ceiling; he led me through this, along a passage, and, opening the door of a back room, told me that was the school-room. I entered, and found two young ladies and two young gentlemen, my future pupils, I supposed. After a formal greeting, the elder girl, who was trifling over a piece of canvass and a basket of German wools, asked if I should like to go up-stairs.
I replied in the affirmative, of course.
"Matilda, take a candle, and show her her room," said she.
Miss Matilda, a strapping hoiden, of about fourteen, with a short frock and trousers, shrugged her shoulders, and made a sligh
