ion that I wished," said Lady R--,
scribbling as fast as she could; "that stare of yours is true to
nature--Cymon and Iphigenia--a perfect tableau!--don't move, I beg; I
only require ten minutes."

I looked up at Master Lionel, and he made such a grimace, that I could
hardly keep my countenance, and I did not exactly feel satisfied at thus
performing, as it were, with a servant; but still, that servant was
Lionel, who was very unlike other servants. In ten minutes, as
promised, we were released, much to my satisfaction. Lionel went off to
clean his knives, and I took up my book, and really when I perceived the
delight of Lady R--, at what she called her success, I no longer felt
anything like annoyance at having complied with her wishes.

One morning, when Lady R--had walked out, and the page Lionel was in the
room, I entered into conversation with him, and asked how it was that he
had been so much better educated than were lads in his position in
general?

"That's a question that I often ask myself, Miss Valerie," replied he,
"as they say in some autobiographies. The first recollection I have of
myself was finding myself walking two-and-two, in a suit of
pepper-and-salt, along with about twenty other very little boys, at a
cheap preparatory school, kept by the Misses Wiggins. There I
remained--nobody came to see me: other boys talked of their papas and
mammas--I had none to talk about: they went home at the holidays, and
brought back toys and plum-cakes; I enjoyed my holidays alone, scraping
holes in the gravel, for want of better employment, between my meals,
and perhaps not opening my mouth, or hearing the sound of my own voice,
more than three or four times in the twenty-four hours. As I had plenty
of time for reflection during the vacations, as I grew bigger I began to
imagine that somehow or another I must have had a father and mother,
like the other boys, and began to make very impertinent (as I was told)
inquiries about them. The Misses Wiggins gave me a good wigging, as
they call it, for my unwarranted curiosity, pointing out the indelicacy
of entering upon such subjects, and thus was my mouth stopped.

"At last I grew up too big for the school, and was not to be managed by
two old maids, and I presume it was through their representations that I
was at last honoured by a visit from an old housekeeper, a woman above
fifty, whom I never saw before. I ventured to put the forbidden
questions to her, and