y, but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great
porter kept constant watch and ward; and when he gave the visitor high
leave to pass, he rang a second great bell, answering to whose notes a
great footman appeared in due time at the great hall-door with such
great tags upon his liveried shoulders that he was perpetually
entangling and hooking himself among the chairs and tables and led a
life of torment which could scarcely have been surpassed if he had been
a blue-bottle in a world of cobwebs.

To this mansion, Mr. Pecksniff, accompanied by his daughters and Mrs.
Todgers, drove gallantly in a one-horse fly. The foregoing ceremonies
having been all performed, they were ushered into the house, and so, by
degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr.
Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil: to wit,
a little woman thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a
pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her;
which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends.

"Visitors for Miss Pinch!" said the footman. He must have been an
ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice
distinction in his manner between the cold respect with which he would
have announced visitors to the family and the warm personal interest
with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.

"Visitors for Miss Pinch!"

Miss Pinch rose hastily with such tokens of agitation as plainly
declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time,
the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take
notice of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the
establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the
animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon
whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties
concerned, very proper, improving, and pleasant.

It is a melancholy fact, but it must be related, that Mr. Pinch's sister
was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face--a very mild
and friendly face; and a pretty little figure--slight and short, but
remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of
him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid
truthfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a
horror, or anything else predicted by the two Misses Pecksniff, that