Nello was taken into Mrs. Swan’s parlour, and there had some bread and butter offered to him, which he accepted with great satisfaction. The bread was dry and the butter salt, but he was hungry, which made it very agreeable. “You’ll have your tea with the rest at six,” said Mrs. Swan; “and now come I’ll show you where you are to sleep. What is that you’re carrying?” “A basket,” said Nello, in the mildest tone; and she asked no further questions, but led him upstairs, not however to the little bedroom of which the child had been dreaming, where he could keep his new pet in safety, but to a long dormitory, containing about a dozen beds. “This is yours, my little man, and you must be tidy and keep your things in order. There are no nurses here, and the boys are a bit rough; but you will soon get used to them. Put down your things here; this chair is yours, and that washing-stand, and----” “Must I sleep there?” cried Nello. It was not so much the little bed--the close neighbourhood of the other boys--that appalled him; but where was there a window for his bird? “Mayn’t I have that bed?” he said, pointing to one which stood near the window at the end of the room. “I daresay,” said Mrs. Swan; “why that is for the head boy, and you are the least, and the last. It is only by a chance that there is room for you at all here.” “But I don’t want to be here,” said Nello. “Oh, mayn’t I be by the window? The head boy hasn’t got a----. What would it matter to him? but I want to be there. I want to be at the window.” “My little master, you’ll be where I choose to place you,” said Mrs. Swan, becoming irritated. “We allow no self-will, and no rebellion here.” “But what shall I do with my----.” Nello did not venture to name the name of the bird. He crept up to the head of the little bed which was to be allotted to him, and surveyed the blank wall tearfully. There was but a very little space between him and the next bed, and he was in the middle of the room, the darkest part of it. Nello began to cry. He called upon Mary, and upon Martuccia, in his heart. Neither of them would suffer him to be treated so. “Oh, mayn’t I go to another room where there is a window?” he cried, through his tears. “My word, that one is a stubborn one; you will have your hands full with him,” said Mrs. Swan, leaving Nello to have his cry out, which experience had taught her was the best way. She found her husband very serious, and full of care, thinking over the charge he had received. “It’s a gentleman’s son, not one of the commoner sort,” he said; “but why they should have brought him to me--such a little fellow--is more than I can see.”