d book was brought out. No Mause
Headrigg ever felt a stronger call to take up her testimony against
Sergeant Bothwell, than I--to speak my mind in this matter of the
popish "lecture pieuse." However, I did manage somehow to curb and rein
in; and though always, as soon as Rosine came to light the lamps, I
shot from the room quickly, yet also I did it quietly; seizing that
vantage moment given by the little bustle before the dead silence, and
vanishing whilst the boarders put their books away.

When I vanished--it was into darkness; candles were not allowed to be
carried about, and the teacher who forsook the refectory, had only the
unlit hall, schoolroom, or bedroom, as a refuge. In winter I sought the
long classes, and paced them fast to keep myself warm--fortunate if the
moon shone, and if there were only stars, soon reconciled to their dim
gleam, or even to the total eclipse of their absence. In summer it was
never quite dark, and then I went up-stairs to my own quarter of the
long dormitory, opened my own casement (that chamber was lit by five
casements large as great doors), and leaning out, looked forth upon the
city beyond the garden, and listened to band-music from the park or the
palace-square, thinking meantime my own thoughts, living my own life,
in my own still, shadow-world.

This evening, fugitive as usual before the Pope and his works, I
mounted the staircase, approached the dormitory, and quietly opened the
door, which was always kept carefully shut, and which, like every other
door in this house, revolved noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. Before I
_saw_, I _felt_ that life was in the great room, usually void: not that
there was either stir or breath, or rustle of sound, but Vacuum lacked,
Solitude was not at home. All the white beds--the "lits d'ange," as
they were poetically termed--lay visible at a glance; all were empty:
no sleeper reposed therein. The sound of a drawer cautiously slid out
struck my ear; stepping a little to one side, my vision took a free
range, unimpeded by falling curtains. I now commanded my own bed and my
own toilet, with a locked work-box upon it, and locked drawers
underneath.

Very good. A dumpy, motherly little body, in decent shawl and the
cleanest of possible nightcaps, stood before this toilet, hard at work
apparently doing me the kindness of "tidying out" the "meuble." Open
stood the lid of the work-box, open the top drawer; duly and
impartially was each succeeding dr