to hear
the birds waking up." Her father always gave a shilling to whoever saw
the first swallow, and Bessie was delighted when the shilling had been
earned.

The hall of the palace is a confusing place; there are many doors,
passages, rooms opening into and leading from it There was always a
moment of hesitation before Bessie opened the garden door or found the
turning which she wanted; but she quickly accommodated herself to all
other eccentricities in one of the most puzzling of old-fashioned
houses.

She spent less time in the schoolroom at Chichester than she had done at
Oxford; she was indeed soon emancipated from the schoolroom altogether.
She was much with her mother in the pleasant morning-room adjoining the
bed and dressing rooms used by her parents. A steep spiral staircase,
without a rail of any kind, with half a stair cut away at intervals for
convenience of access to a cupboard or a small room, led from her
father's dressing-room to rooms above. One of these with a western
window so darkened by trees that no sunlight and very little daylight
entered, was assigned to Bessie and one sister, whilst another sister
was close at hand in another small room. The Bishop made a window to the
south in Bessie's room, which greatly improved it, admitting light and
air and all the sweet garden sounds and scents. The drawing-room is on
the first floor near the morning-room. You ascend to it by a few broad
stairs. A passage on the same floor leads to the private chapel attached
to the palace, where Bessie knelt daily in prayer. The dining-room on
the ground floor, the best room in the house, with its oak panels and
fine painted ceiling, was a great pleasure to her. Some years later,
when her work made it necessary that she should have a private
sitting-room, two rooms were assigned to her in the centre of the house,
one of which had been the schoolroom. Access to these is gained by a
long passage barely high enough to allow a full-grown person to stand
erect at the highest part, near the bedroom door; and sloping on the
other side to the floor and outer wall of the palace. Windows in the
steep roof look north into West Street. Bessie's rooms were close to the
angle formed by the centre and west wing of the palace, and had windows
facing south.

Up and down the narrow steep stairs and along the passages to the
drawing-room, the morning-room, the dining-room, the chapel, the fragile
form of the blind girl was seen to pa