which the rooks circled and cawed in the golden sky. The
scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant
home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in
her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had
been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley
Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made
me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I
was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise.

I had no drop again till the next day, for I was carried triumphantly
through the following hours by my introduction to the younger of my
pupils. The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the
spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to
do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen, and I
afterward wondered that my employer had not told me more of her. I slept
little that night--I was too much excited; and this astonished me, too,
I recollect, remained with me, adding to my sense of the liberality with
which I was treated. The large, impressive room, one of the best in
the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the full, figured
draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see
myself from head to foot, all struck me--like the extraordinary charm of
my small charge--as so many things thrown in. It was thrown in as
well, from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose in
a relation over which, on my way, in the coach, I fear I had rather
brooded. The only thing indeed that in this early outlook might have
made me shrink again was the clear circumstance of her being so glad
to see me. I perceived within half an hour that she was so glad--stout,
simple, plain, clean, wholesome woman--as to be positively on her guard
against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she
should wish not to show it, and that, with reflection, with suspicion,
might of course have made me uneasy.

But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection
with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the
vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to
do with the restlessness that, before morning, made me several times
rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect;
to watch, from my open window, the faint summer dawn, to