The Siege

After much knocking and ringing the door was opened to him by a rude,
slatternly, half-witted looking charwoman, or rather girl, who said
"Master was not in," and nearly shut the door in his face. However, he
succeeded in sending in his card, backed by the mention of Lady Temple
and Miss Curtis; and this brought out Mrs. Rawlins, her white streamers
floating stiff behind her, full of curtsies and regrets at having to
refuse any friend of Miss Curtis, but Mr. Mauleverer's orders were
precise and could not be infringed. He was gone to lecture at Bristol,
but if the gentleman would call at any hour he would fix to morrow or
next day, Mr. Mauleverer would be proud to wait on him.

When he came at the appointed time, all was in the normal state of the
institution. The two little girls in white pinafores sat upon their
bench with their books before them, and their matron presiding over
them; Mr. Mauleverer stood near, benignantly attentive to the children
and obligingly so to the visitor, volunteering information and answering
all questions. Colonel Keith tried to talk to the children, but when he
asked one of them whether she liked drawing better than lace-making
her lips quivered, and Mrs. Rawlins replied for her, that she was never
happy except with a pencil in her hand. "Show the gentleman, my dear,"
and out came a book of studios of cubes, globes, posts, etc., while Mr.
Mauleverer talked artistically of drawing from models. Next, he observed
on a certain suspicious blackness of little Mary's eye, and asked her
what she had done to herself. But the child hung her head, and Mrs.
Rawlins answered for her, "Ah! Mary is ashamed to tell: but the
gentleman will think nothing of it, my dear. He knows that children will
be children, and I cannot bear to check them, the dears."