as remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth
I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I could
arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so
inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It
took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry
and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had
suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of
three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not
been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any "game."
Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was
but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That
was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say
to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some
unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in
unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then
stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that
was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that
we should surely see no more of him.

This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that
what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming
work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and
through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw
myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a
constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original
fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray
prose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no
long grind; so how could work not be charming that presented itself as
daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of
the schoolroom. I don't mean by this, of course, that we studied
only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort
of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by
saying that instead of growing used to them--and it's a marvel for a
governess: I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constant fresh
discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these
discoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the
boy's conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have noted,