And yet I was wretched: for was not
Miss Chinfeather dead? And that, too, was a fact almost too incredible
for belief.
As I wandered, this autumn morning, up and down the solitary playground,
I went back in memory as far as memory would carry me, but only to find
that Miss Chinfeather and Park Hill Seminary blocked up the way. Beyond
them lay darkness and mystery. Any events in my child's life that might
have happened before my arrival at Park Hill had for me no authentic
existence. I had been part and parcel of Miss Chinfeather and the
Seminary for so long a time that I could not dissociate myself from them
even in thought. Other pupils had had holidays, and letters, and
presents, and dear ones at home of whom they often talked; but for me
there had been none of these things. I knew that I had been placed at
Park Hill when a very little girl by some, to me, mysterious and unknown
person, but further than that I knew nothing. The mistress of Park Hill
had not treated me in any way differently from her other pupils; but had
not the bills contracted on my account been punctually paid by somebody,
I am afraid that the even-handed justice on which she prided
herself--which, in conjunction with her aquiline nose and a certain
antique severity of deportment, caused her to be known amongst us girls
as _The Roman Matron_--would have been somewhat ruffled, and that
sentence of expulsion from those classic walls would have been promptly
pronounced and as promptly carried into effect.
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