The Argosy — page 204: what you’re looking at

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

, 190 How it Happened. for private life or for holding situations as governesses, when they can secure a nomination for the school, for the moderate cost of about thirty pounds a year; but they must dress almost as simply as quakers, and are allowed no licence in the matter of doing up the hair peculiarly or becomingly. Curls or waves must be brushed out, however hard the task may be, and no pads are permitted to be worn. The College is situated in Old Town. My husband, John Grey, is one of the head masters, and we live in a large and very antiquated- looking house, which adjoins the main building; twelve of the scholars always residing with us. Our hall-door opens out upon the narrow, winding street, and is approached by a broad, high flight of stone steps. Every part of our mansion is constructed on an immense scale, as though, when it was built, Redchester had been inhabited by a race of giants. The rooms are lofty, the walls thick, and the doors enormous. A long arched and flagged passage, or corridor, connects our dwelling with the school to which we are attached. We have had one great friend here ever since our arrival: Louis Carter, a man of somewhat multifarious employments. He had been, at one time, very well off. There was every prospect of his having large means in his hands, and of his holding a good position in society, but his father speculated heavily, and lost nearly all he possessed. His last act, shortly before his death, had been the purchase of an annuity for his son and only child, with the remains of his fortune. ‘“ He did this because he believed me quite incapable of earning anything for myself,” Louis explained to me, one of those soft, dreamy, half-sad smiles peculiar to him lighting up his face as he spoke. \ Our friend was just over thirty when we knew him first. He hdd devoted his youth and early manhood to the study and culture of music, which was his great and absorbing pleasure ; but when com- parative poverty fell upon him he turned his attention to other things. At the time I now write of, although he was organist at our church, and also gave music lessons two evenings in each week at the Academy, he was, besides, employed every morning as a clerk in a thriving local bank. Thus he was a busy and tolerably well-to-do man, but he was quite alone in the world, and was of a depressed and desponding turn ot mind. He had, moreover, a great dislike to Redchester. Its ruined houses and its somewhat desolate, world-forsaken air oppressed him with gloom and melancholy forebodings, he was wont to say. I always, on the contrary, cherished a particular partiality for the place. It seemed to me as if life in this picturesque spot could not be as commonplace and unromantic as it might be elsewhere. I gave lessons twice a week at the Academy as well as Louis Carter, but the accomplishment 1 taught was drawing. When) I arrived at the school one blustering day early in January, I found that comliichooks.com