nearly one o'clock before we reached the place of our destination.
Yet, after all, when we entered the lofty iron gateway, when we
drove softly up the smooth, well-rolled carriage-road, with the
green lawn on each side, studded with young trees, and approached
the new but stately mansion of Wellwood, rising above its mushroom
poplar-groves, my heart failed me, and I wished it were a mile or
two farther off. For the first time in my life I must stand alone:
there was no retreating now. I must enter that house, and
introduce myself among its strange inhabitants. But how was it to
be done? True, I was near nineteen; but, thanks to my retired life
and the protecting care of my mother and sister, I well knew that
many a girl of fifteen, or under, was gifted with a more womanly
address, and greater ease and self-possession, than I was. Yet, if
Mrs. Bloomfield were a kind, motherly woman, I might do very well,
after all; and the children, of course, I should soon be at ease
with them--and Mr. Bloomfield, I hoped, I should have but little to
do with.

'Be calm, be calm, whatever happens,' I said within myself; and
truly I kept this resolution so well, and was so fully occupied in
steadying my nerves and stifling the rebellious flutter of my
heart, that when I was admitted into the hall and ushered into the
presence of Mrs. Bloomfield, I almost forgot to answer her polite
salutation; and it afterwards struck me, that the little I did say
was spoken in the tone of one half-dead or half-asleep. The lady,
too, was somewhat chilly in her manner, as I discovered when I had
time to reflect. She was a tall, spare, stately woman, with thick
black hair, cold grey eyes, and extremely sallow complexion.

With due politeness, however, she showed me my bedroom, and left me