Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 122: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LADY BESS’S HISTORY 105 assurance that when he was old enough he should join me in the same establishment. At the expiration of eight or ten days, the housekeeper from that splendid mansion arrived at the cottage. The moment of parting had now come, and full well do I remember the bitter, bitter tears I shed when separating from Frank and Mrs. Burnaby. The housekeeper took me into London in a hired vehicle, and thence we proceeded by coach to Southampton. There I was placed at the establishment of Mr. and Mrs. Jennings. It was a very large one, and was divided into two distinct compartments, one for boys and one for girls, the master presiding over the former and the mistress over the latter. There it was that the housekeeper left me, kissing me affectionately when she went away, and giving me a well-filled purse tor pocket- money. I was well treated at this school; that is to say, I experienced no unkindness. But I need scarcely observe that I very much missed the tender care of her whom I had been taught to believe was my grandmother. Mrs. Burnaby Irequently wrote kind and encouraging letters to me, and occasionally sent me little presents. I expected to go home to her at the holidays, and was sadly distressed when I was informed that I must remain at school. I wrote to Mrs. Burnaby imploring her to have me home, and telling her how much I longed to see my dear brother Frank. She wrote me back a letter full of kindness, but assuring me that circumstances compelled her to keep me at school, and en- joining me to make myself as happy as I possibly could. Frank sometimes wrote in his own little way, and I remember how I used to weep over those letters. Ah, I had been told to make myself happy, but I could not; and during the holidays, when most of the other children were away at their homes, I often used to weep and sob as if my heart would break. 3 “ At the expiration of very nearly two years, I was one day most agreeably surprised by the presence of my brother. He told me that Mrs. Burnaby was dead, and that she was not our grandmother, — indeed, that she was no relation at all. He was not dressed in black; but when I spoke to the school-mistress on the subject, she told me that-we were neither of us to be put into mourning. I was much afflicted at hearing of the good old lady’s death, and I felt shocked at this prohibition from putting on a suitable apparel, for a ECORVICLO@QC) SS (EO)