g of
falsehoods? She was trapped now--imprisoned in this horrible house, not
to be released until this fictitious aunt arrived, which, of course,
would be never. The book on her lap lay open at a coloured lithograph
of Mazeppa bound upon his steed and in full flight across the Tartar
steppes. She knew the story--was it not Mr. Maggs's most thrilling
"equestrian _finale_," and first favourite with the public? At another
time she would have examined the picture eagerly. But now it swam
before her, unmeaning. She closed the book, threw a glance around the
four corners of the room, another at the stuffed kestrel--whose pitiless
small eye strangely resembled Doctor Glasson's--and dragged herself to
the window.

The lower panes of the window were filled with coloured transparencies
representing in series the history of the Prodigal Son. They excluded a
great deal of daylight and the whole of the view. Even by standing on
tip-toe she could not look over them, and she dared not try to raise the
sash.

By-and-by a thought struck her. She went back to her chair, lifted it,
carried it to the window and climbed upon it; and this was no small feat
or succession of feats, for as yet her thigh pained her, and fear held
her half-paralysed.

What she looked upon was an oblong space enclosed by brick walls ten or
twelve feet high, and divided by a lower wall--also of brick--into two
parallelograms of unequal width. Of these the wider was a gravelled
yard, absolutely bare, in extent perhaps an acre; and here, in various
knots and groups, were gathered some two dozen children. Alongside of
the yard and upon its left--that is to say, as Tilda guessed, between it
and the canal--ran a narrower strip of kitchen garden, planted with
leeks, cabbages, potatoes, and ending in a kind of shed--part
glass-house, part out-house--built in lean-to fashion against the
terminal wall, which overtopped it by several feet. The children in the
yard could not look into this garden, for the dividing wall reached far
above their heads.

Tilda, too, had no eyes for the garden, after a first glance had assured
her it was empty. The children engaged all her attention. She had
never seen anything like them; and yet they were obviously boys and
girls, and in numbers pretty equally divided, What beat her was that
they neither ran about nor played at any game, but walked to and fro--to
and fro--as though pacing through some form of drill; and yet aga