right down their trunks, and bushy leaves. The
broad streets were hilly; the wind, coming in puffs, met them with
clouds of gritty white dust. They had just, with bent heads, their
hands at their hats, passed through one of these miniature whirlwinds,
when turning a corner they suddenly drew up, and the boy sprang to the
ponies' heads. Laura, who had not been expecting the end so soon, saw
only a tall wooden fence; but Cousin Grace looked higher, gave a stagey
shudder and cried: "Oh my eye Betty Martin! Aren't I glad it isn't me
that's going to school! It looks just like a prison."

It certainly was an imposing building viewed from within, when the
paling-gate had closed behind them. To Laura, who came from a township
of one-storied brick or weatherboard houses, it seemed vast in its
breadth and height, appalling in its sombre greyness. Between Godmother
and Cousin Grace she walked up an asphalted path, and mounted the steps
that led to a massive stone portico. The bell Godmother rang made no
answering sound, but after a very few seconds the door swung back, and
a slender maidservant in cap and apron stood before them. She smiled at
them pleasantly, as, in Chinaman-fashion, they crossed the threshold;
then, inclining her head at a murmured word from Godmother, she
vanished as lightly as she had come, and they sat and looked about
them. They were in a plainly furnished but very lofty waiting-room.
There were two large windows. The venetian blinds had not been lowered,
and the afternoon sun, beating in, displayed a shabby patch on the
carpet. It showed up, too, a coating of dust that had gathered on the
desk-like, central table. There was the faint, distinctive smell of
strange furniture. But what impressed Laura most was the stillness. No
street noises pierced the massy walls, but neither did the faintest
echo of all that might be taking place in the great building itself
reach their ears: they sat aloof, shut off, as it were, from the living
world. And this feeling soon grew downright oppressive: it must be like
this to be dead, thought Laura to herself; and inconsequently
remembered a quarter of an hour she had once spent in a dentist's
ante-room: there as here the same soundless vacancy, the same anguished
expectancy. Now, as then, her heart began to thump so furiously that
she was afraid the others would hear it. But they, too, were subdued;
though Cousin Grace tittered continually you heard only a gentle
wheezing, a