e house is being cleaned,' she said, 'and all the woodwork has to be
washed. You may as well go down to the kitchen for a pail of hot water
and begin with the wainscotting in the hall.'

'I'm not a servant!' I answered.

'Honest work is no disgrace to anybody,' she said. 'You must try to make
yourself useful in every possible way, and be careful not to splash your
jacket.'

Raging inwardly at my task, I only hesitated a few moments; then, going
down to the kitchen, I asked the good-natured cook for a pail of water.

'I call it a shame!' she muttered. 'Things were different in Mr.
Windlesham's time. A shame I call it.'

'Oh, it doesn't matter,' I answered, feeling not a little embarrassed by
her sympathy.

She filled an iron pail at the boiler-tap, and, as I stood waiting, my
thoughts flew back to earlier days at Acacia Road, and to Jane and her
energetic manner of smacking the oilcloth. But I suppose my ideas had
developed since those times, and certainly I felt this morning that I
was being subjected to the lowest humiliation. However, I carried up the
pail, slopping the water on the stairs at every step, with a
scrubbing-brush in the other hand, and then I set to work. When once I
had begun, I cannot pretend that I found the actual washing of the
wainscot particularly distasteful, although it seemed rather hard, after
I had done my best, that Mrs. Turton should upbraid me for soiling my
clothes.

It was perhaps a week later that the notion of running away definitely
entered my mind. By that time I had cleaned a considerable portion of
the woodwork of the house, lime-whitened a portion of an outside wall,
filled several coal-scuttles, and swept the yard. My clothes were
naturally not at the best at the end of the term; I had grown
considerably since they were new, and now they were splashed with
distemper and soiled with dirt. One Monday morning I noticed the absence
of the boy who cleaned the boots and knives and forks, and remarked upon
it to Augustus.

'You see we shall not want him now,' he answered, with one of his
irritating sniggers, and I fully understood the significance of his
words. I try to do the Turtons no injustice, reminding myself that, to
begin with, they were far from rich, and that they had lost the forty
pounds or more which should have been paid for the last term's board and
schooling. Moreover, they had not known me for some years, as the
Windleshams had done; I was in their house, requ