Thus encumbered, the good Mrs. Lumley introduced herself in an asthmatic
voice which was scarcely more than a whisper, and in a manner as kindly
as it was humble. Then she shoved the children back to their benches,
and led me up-stairs to the dormitory; showing me the cot where I was to
sleep, the lavatory where I would make my toilet in the mornings, and
the bath-room where I had the privilege of taking a bath once a week.
She also told me the rules of the house: first bell at six o'clock, when
everybody in the dormitory must rise and dress; second bell at half-past
six, when everybody must leave the dormitory, not to return until
bedtime. As to that hour, it came at various times: for the waifs it was
seven o'clock; for the regular lodgers, ten o'clock; and for the
transients, from seven till twelve o'clock, at which hour the house was
closed for the night.

All this Mrs. Lumley repeated in a dreary monotone which seemed
strangely out of keeping with the half-concealed kindliness which was
revealed in her homely countenance. She was a working matron, a sort of
upper servant, and had been three years in the place, which, I gradually
gleaned from her, had been started as a home for destitute children and
had eventually assumed the character and discharged the functions of a
girls' lodging-house. Under what auspices the house was conducted she
didn't know any more than did I, any more than I know to this day. There
was a board of managers,--ladies who sometimes came to look at the
dormitories and the bath-rooms and then went away again in their
carriages; there was the matron, Mrs. Pitbladder, who had been there
four or five years, she thought, but wasn't certain; there were several
under-matrons, who acted as teachers to the children. What did the
children study? Reading and writing and arithmetic and the Bible; and
then, as soon as they were old enough, they were turned into the
sewing-room, where they were taught dressmaking, or into the laundry,
where they learned to do fine laundry-work.

All this sounded just and good, and I began to alter my opinion of the
place. I even began to think that perhaps Mrs. Pitbladder was merely
absent-minded and a little crotchety; that she had not meant to forget
my fifteen cents change. I did not know until several days later that
the house did a large dressmaking and laundry business, and that their
advertisement appeared, and does to this day appear, in all the daily
newspapers.