Had Robert told her I disapproved of playing cards for money? Of course not, that was a society taradiddle! He couldn’t know my scruples or he would never have asked me to meet his wife. She, she had guessed my poverty by my profession--all schoolmistresses are poor; every one that teaches is poor--education must be gratis. A cold blast of air from the chimney made me shiver. The room was indeed draughty! and how still! I did not altogether like such stillness, it got on my nerves. And how dark! Why were not all the gas jets lighted--why only this one? Because I was poor; the poor should learn to be economical, and example is better than precept! Hence this feeble flicker: a flicker that failing to reach the further extremities of the chamber, left the corners enveloped in shrouds of darkness--of a black impenetrable darkness I could neither fathom nor comprehend. The furniture was superb, but it was of too funereal a texture and colour to be pleasing to me just then, I would have preferred something of a brighter tone. The floor was covered by a carpet that must assuredly have been made expressly for that room since it stretched right up to the skirting, concealing every particle of bare board. I could not see the pattern, I could only devise by the soft tread of the carpet that it was either of Persian or Turkish manufacture. In some places, where kissed by the moonlight, it was almost white, whilst in other parts it was rendered black by a hotch-potch of countless shadows lying thick upon it. Through the great bay windows opposite me, a magnificent panorama of lawn, meadows and rivers, beyond which I fancied I could detect the needle-like front of a steeple, spread itself before my eyes. All this natural beauty lay enhanced by a thin covering of gleaming snow. It was Christmas! The glamour of the hour and season enchanted me; past injuries and St. Rudolphs were forgotten; I was at peace with all men. At peace! What wouldn’t I give if I could always be so; if these broad acres, this noble mansion, this stately apartment were mine--mine--ALL MINE--and the stillness of the room again oppressed me. Where were the many guests miladi had mentioned? Where were the sounds of revelry? The high-pitched voices of women, the hoarser tones of men, the indistinct murmuring of conversation such as I had sat and listened to in days of yore; how it had hummed and buzzed around me when plunged in pleasant reverie, it then had no more effect on my hearing than the lapping of the gentlest waves on the seashore. There were no such sounds now; these massive walls were a sure, impenetrable barrier to whatever might be going on outside--this room--far from being filled with giddy babblers--was empty, distractedly, painfully EMPTY, empty save for the dancing moonbeams and the moving shadows.