green, which belonged to the town, and where Dr. Valpy's boys played
after school hours. The best part of the house was encompassed by a
beautiful old-fashioned garden, where the young ladies were allowed to
wander under tall trees in hot summer evenings."

When Mary arrived at the Abbey the holidays were not quite over, and
she was the first of the sixty pupils to present herself. The school
was kept by Mme. de St. Quentin and a Mrs. Latournelle, who were
partners. "Madame," as the girls always called her, was an Englishwoman
by birth, but had married a French refugee whom circumstances had
obliged to become French teacher in the school. Madame was a handsome
woman, with bright eyes and a very dignified presence. Mary tells us
that she danced remarkably well, played and sang and did fine
needlework, and "spoke well and agreeably in English and in French
without fear." Mrs. Latournelle was a funny, old-fashioned body, whose
chief concern was with the housekeeping, tea-making, and other domestic
duties. She had a cork leg, and her dress had never been known to
change its fashion. "Her white muslin handkerchief was always pinned
with the same number of pins; her muslin apron always hung in the same
form; she always wore the same short sleeves, cuffs, and ruffles, with
a breast-bow to answer the bow on her cap, both being flat with two
notched ends."

Mrs. Latournelle received Mary in a wainscotted parlour, hung round
with miniatures and pieces of framed needlework done in chenille,
representing tombs and weeping willows. Mary was to be what in those
days was known as a "parlour-boarder," which meant that she was treated
in part as a grown-up young lady, had more liberty and privileges than
the other girls, and, in fact, was allowed to do very much as she
liked. She thought herself gloriously happy, on coming down to
breakfast next day in the twilight of a winter's morning, to be allowed
to eat hot buttered toast and to draw as near as she liked to the fire;
neither of which things was it lawful to do at home.

Mary was "vastly amused," during the first few days, at seeing her
future school-fellows arrive one after another. The two first to come
were a pair of twin sisters named Martha and Mary Lee, so exactly alike
that they could only be distinguished by a mark which one had on her
forehead under the hair. There were many other big girls, but none
besides herself who were parlour-boarders during that quarter. Mary
so