ud lived a happy life, the pet of the whole
seminary, till she was a young lady.

Cloisterham was a dull, gray town with an ancient cathedral, which was
so cold and dark and damp that looking into its door was like looking
down the throat of old Father Time. The cathedral had a fine choir,
which sang at all the services and was taught and led by a music-master
whose name was John Jasper. This Jasper, as it happened, was the uncle
and guardian of Edwin Drood.

Drood, who was studying to be an engineer, was very fond of his uncle
and came often to Cloisterham to visit him, so that Rosebud saw a great
deal of her intended husband. He always called her "Pussy." He used to
call on her at the school and take her walking and buy her candy at a
Turkish shop, called "Lumps of Delight," and did his best to get on well
with her, though he felt awkward.

Drood and Jasper were much more like two friends than like uncle and
nephew, for the choir master was very little older than the other.

Jasper seemed to be wonderfully fond of Drood, and every one who knew
him thought him a most honorable and upright man; but in reality he was
far different. At heart he hated the cathedral and the singing, and
wished often that he could find relief, like some old monk, in carving
demons out of the desks and seats. He had a soul that was without fear
or conscience.

One vile and wicked practice he had which he had hidden from all who
knew him. He was an opium smoker. He would steal away to London to a
garret kept by a mumbling old woman who knew the secret of mixing the
drug, and there, stretched on a dirty pallet, sometimes with a drunken
Chinaman or a Lascar beside him, would smoke pipe after pipe of the
dreadful mixture that stole away his senses and left him worse than
before. Hours later he would awake, give the woman money and hurry back
to Cloisterham just in time, perhaps, to put on his church robes and
lead the cathedral choir.

Though no one knew of this, and though Edwin Drood thought his uncle was
well-nigh perfect, Rosebud, after she grew up, had no liking for Jasper.
He gave her music lessons and every time they met he terrified her. She
felt sometimes that he haunted her thoughts like a dreadful ghost. He
seemed almost to make a slave of her with his looks, and she felt that
in every glance he was telling her that he, Jasper, loved her and yet
compelled her to keep silence. But, though disliking the choir master
so, and shiver