The important subject of terms and length of engagement having been adjusted at a previous interview, the patroness has little to do beyond introducing the new pupil to her new protector; and the identity of the family name unhappily preventing her début as the orphan child of a deceased schoolfellow, no alternative remains but to name her as Miss Maria Armstrong, a young person in whose welfare she feels a lively interest, the young lady being, in fact, a distant relative of Mr Armstrong himself, the offspring, she is sorry to add, of an imprudent marriage. How far her education may already have proceeded, the lady has had no means of ascertaining, never having seen any member of the family until the previous evening. She, however, without solicitude, confides the child to her maternal care, in the fullest confidence that whatever talents she may possess will receive the highest culture at her hands, and in the hope that the same will be met by a corresponding degree of diligence on the part of the young person herself, as on the exercise of these talents, be they great or small, her future wellbeing must depend. The lady believes that every necessary for the use of one in the position of her protégée has been provided; but should anything indispensable have been forgotten, she begs Mrs Sharp will have the goodness to procure it. She has only further to request, that no unnecessary intercourse with her own family may be encouraged on the part of the child; such communications, if of frequent occurrence, having a very obvious tendency to unsettle the mind, and unfit it for its manifold duties. With these sentiments Mrs Sharp entirely coincides. The lady rises, bestows a kiss on the little fairy – a shake of the hand and half-a-guinea on the young dependent – and a bow expressive of mingled cordiality and condescension on the mistress of the house – and then, with a measured step, regains her equipage; and, as the nursery rhyme has it —
'The carriage drives off with a bound.'
As the new-comer is only a half-boarder, it cannot of course be expected that the head of an establishment of pretensions equal to the one of which we are speaking should herself introduce the stranger to her dormitory; and as the attendance of a housemaid might lead to unwarrantable expectations of future service, the little girl is deputed to convoy Miss Armstrong to the room over the kitchen, the left-hand closet of which will be found vacant for the reception of her clothes. When this is accomplished, should any time remain previously to the tea-bell, she had better inform herself of the names and localities of the various departments, with which her little guide will have pleasure in making her acquainted. The clothes are unpacked, and put away, and the tour of the house is hardly accomplished when the expected peal is rung. A rustling sound, accompanied by the shuffling of many feet, is heard in the distance; the little girl safely pilots her companion to the parlour door, leaving her to make her entrée alone, and then skips off to join her companions in the refectory. The young novice waits a few moments to gather both breath and courage, and then gently taps at the door; a voice from within desires her to enter, and she stands before half-a-dozen smart ladies at tea. A pause of a moment succeeds, which is broken by the governess, who thinks (aloud) that it will perhaps be the best plan for Miss Armstrong at once to enter upon her duties. She is therefore desired to proceed along the passage till she arrives at a green baize door, on opening which, a second door will introduce her to the apartments of the young ladies. She makes her exit from the parlour in the best manner she is able, and experiences but little difficulty in discovering the eating-room, from which issues a cheerful buzz of voices. She wisely resolves not to give her courage time to cool, and so enters without observing the preliminary ceremony of self-announcement. The sound of the opening door produces an instantaneous hush, and at the same time directs towards her the glance of four-and-twenty pair of curious eyes, besides a piercingly-black individual pair appertaining to the French governess at the head of the table. She stands perfectly astonished at her own temerity; then thankfully sinks into a chair pointed out by that lady on her left hand; accepts a cup of tea, which a choking sensation in the throat prevents her from swallowing, and is conscious of an unwilling suffusion of colour from the crown of her head to her very fingers' ends. Tea and the tea things at length despatched, the usual half hour supervenes previously to the period for preparing lessons, advantage of which is taken by madame to inquire the name, age, &c. of the new-comer; whilst the little figurante, whose position renders her a sort of avant-courier to the school-room of the proceedings in the drawing-room, is captured by one of the elder girls, who, on pretence of plaiting her hair, seats her on her knee in the midst of her own peculiar set, and proceeds to extract, with very commendable ingenuity, all the events of the day, reserving to herself the liberty of drawing her own inferences from the detail, copious or meagre, as the case may be. One circumstance connected with the arrival of the young stranger does strike the privileged set with inexpressible astonishment. If, as is asserted, she came in a private carriage, and that carriage the veritable property of her friends, and not a 'trumpery glass-coach' – how, then, could she be going to sleep in the room over the kitchen? – that chamber of Blue-Beard reputation, strongly suspected of harbouring mice, and convicted, beyond question, of being subject to a very disagreeable odour! The thing is pronounced impossible, and unworthy a moment's credit. In vain the child assures them, upon her word and honour, she helped to put away her clothes; the proposition is not to be believed for an instant. The informant, indignant at having her veracity impeached, calls aloud on Miss Armstrong to verify her assertion. The appeal is, however, happily overpowered by a simultaneous shuffle of the feet of the inquisitors; she is quietly slided from the knee on which she had been sitting, and the discussion proceeds in the absence of the witness. There certainly is something very unusual attending the new-comer: no note of preparation announced her advent; no cheerful congratulations had been offered to themselves on the prospect of a new companion; no hopes expressed that they would do their best to make her home a pleasant one. And then the circumstance of her taking her first tea in the eating-room, to which she was not even introduced; such a mark of contumely had never before been suffered within the memory of the oldest school-girl present; and of this fact they were themselves eye-witnesses. It was inexplicable: they could not understand it. A single hour, however, suffices to solve the mystery: the period at length arrives for preparing lessons, and with it the housemaid to curl the hair of the younger children; and in this labour of love Miss Armstrong is requested to lend her assistance! A glimmering light as to her real position flashes across the minds of the bewildered spectators. But when she is further required to attend the children to their respective rooms, and light the candles preparatory to the arrival of the elder girls, the matter is put beyond a doubt: she is – she must be – a half-boarder!
Reader, picture to yourself, I beseech you, the estimation in which a Christian slave is held by a follower of the true Prophet, a Nazarene by a Jewish rabbi, a Pariah by a holy Brahmin of immaculate descent, and you may then have some faint, some very faint idea, of the depths to which this fact has sunk our heroine in the estimation of the major part of her schoolfellows!
The young ladies are at length fairly disposed of for the night; and the half-boarder, having completed her duties, descends again to the school-room, which she finds in the possession of the housemaid and a cloud of dust, the French teacher having joined the party in the parlour. Thither she also repairs, and requests permission to retire to her room. The concession is readily granted to her, and she gladly seeks her bed, to sleep with what soundness of repose she may. Anxious to fulfil the duties of her post to the spirit as well as to the letter of the bond, she is dressed even before the school-bell rings, and is ready on its summons to assist in the ablutions of the little ones. She saves many a heedless chit a fine by herself folding up the forgotten night-clothes; an indulgence, however, not to be taken as a precedent, her duty being to aid in the reformation of evil habits, not to slur them over. Having had no lessons marked out for her on this first morning, she