
room; she turned it on him when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed
again with a thankful heart.
    The schoolmaster sat for a long time smoking his pipe by the kitchen fire,
which was now deserted, thinking, with a very happy face, on the fortunate
chance which had brought him so opportunely to the child's assistance, and
parrying, as well as in his simple way he could, the inquisitive
cross-examination of the landlady, who had a great curiosity to be made
acquainted with every particular of Nell's life and history. The poor
schoolmaster was so open-hearted, and so little versed in the most ordinary
cunning or deceit, that she could not have failed to succeed in the first five
minutes, but that he happened to be unacquainted with what she wished to know;
and so he told her. The landlady, by no means satisfied with this assurance,
which she considered an ingenious evasion of the question, rejoined that he had
his reasons of course. Heaven forbid that she should wish to pry into the
affairs of her customers, which indeed were no business of hers, who had so many
of her own. She had merely asked a civil question, and to be sure she knew it
would meet with a civil answer. She was quite satisfied - quite. She had rather
perhaps that he would have said at once that he didn't choose to be
communicative, because that would have been plain and intelligible. However, she
had no right to be offended of course. He was the best judge, and had a perfect
right to say what he pleased; nobody could dispute that for a moment. Oh dear,
no!
    »I assure you, my good lady,« said the mild schoolmaster, »that I have told
you the plain truth. As I hope to be saved, I have told you the truth.«
    »Why then, I do believe you are in earnest,« rejoined the landlady, with
ready good-humour, »and I'm very sorry I have teased you. But curiosity, you
know, is the curse of our sex, and that's the fact.«
    The landlord scratched his head, as if he thought the curse sometimes
involved the other sex likewise; but he was prevented from making any remark to
that effect, if he had it in contemplation to do so, by the schoolmaster's
rejoinder.
    »You should question me for half-a-dozen hours at a sitting, and welcome,
and I would answer you patiently for the kindness of
