QUITE ALONE.
BOOK THE FIRST: CHILDHOOD.
CHAPTER V. THE BUNNYCASTLES IN COUNCIL.

The back parlour at Rhododendron House,
dedicated to the nocturnal meal spoken of in the
preceding chapter, was a very moderately-sized
apartment.  Indeed, if an observer of its dimensions
had hazarded an opinion that there wasn't
room to swing a cat in it, the remark, although
coarse (and, as such, naturally intolerable in
an establishment so genteel as Rhododendron
House), would not have fallen very far short of
the truth.  This is intended to be a candid
history; so I will at once confess that the back
parlour was—well, what shall I say?—poky.
A pair of folding-doors took up very nearly one
of its sides, and these gave admittance to the
front parlour, or drawing-room, or state saloon,
which was furnished in a style of classic but
frigid splendour, and where parents, guardians,
and other visitors, to whom the Bunnycastles
desired to show ceremonial honour, were
received.  No pupil dared to enter that sacred
apartment without permission.  Many, indeed,
never saw it from the day when they arrived at
school, and were regaled with the sacrificial cake
and wine (both of British manufacture), to the
day when their friends came to fetch them away.
Even the Bunnycastles were chary about
intruding on their Sala Regia, save on festive or
solemn occasions.  The back parlour was
essentially their keeping and sitting chamber—their
bower and their home.

The late Mr. Bunnycastle's portrait hung on
one side of the modest pier-glass on the mantel,
and an effigy—a very vile one—in crayons, of
Mrs. Bunnycastle, flanked it.  Opposite, was
a small cottage piano; and you will see, by-and-
by, that Rhododendron House was famous for
its specimens of modern improvements on the
harpsichord and the spinet.  The window-
curtains were of a dull decorous moreen; the
carpets of a faded crimson.  The table had a
cloth in imitation needlework, like a schoolgirl's
sampler of unwonted size taken out of its frame.
The chairs were of well-worn green leather. In
a recess were three handsome mahogany desks
and three rosewood workboxes, respectively
pertaining to the three sisters Bunnycastle.  Mrs.
B.'s great black leather writing-case, where she
kept her school register, and her account-books,
and her valuables, had an occasional table to
itself; and when I have added to the pictorial
embellishments of the room, an agreeable
although somewhat faded engraving of Pharaoh's
Daughter finding the Infant Moses in the
Bullrushes, and when I have remarked that on each
side of the window hung a cage containing a
canary, both of which were unceasingly watched
by a grey cat of sly and jesuitical mien, I may
be absolved from further performance of my
favourite but unpopular part of the broker's
man.

It was the same summer evening—the evening
of the day of the flower-show at Chiswick,
and of Griffin Blunt's rendezvous with the
plasterer's wife at the sign of the Goat.  The hour
was half-past nine, and the Bunnycastles were
sitting down to supper.  Pepper, the maid, a
demure person far gone into spinsterhood,
attended upon them.  The Miss Bunnycastles
had a decided objection to "bits of girls," as
they were accustomed to call all female domestics
under five-and-twenty.  Every servant at
Rhododendron House was expected to be thirty
years of age, or to wear caps and a
countenance corresponding to that period in life.
Pepper's christian name happened to be Marian;
but she was rigidly addressed as "Pepper," and
every servant in the house went by her
surname.  It averted the possibility of familiarity
on the part of the young ladies.

The supper was not a very sumptuous repast.
It never was.  Frugality, as well as early rising
and timeous retiring, formed the rule at
Rhododendron House; and the Miss Bunnycastles were
small eaters.  There was the remnant of a leg of
mutton, cold, grinning in a very ghastly manner
after its ordeal on the operating table at the one
o'clock dinner.  It was brought up more for
ornament than for use, and unless some friend
dropped in—a very small and select circle of
acquaintances were so permitted to pay visits at
supper-time—it was rarely subjected to the
renewed action of the knife.  Miss Adelaide
Bunnycastle supped on a small basin of arrowroot.
Miss Celia seldom partook of any refreshment
more nourishing than a minute parallelogram
of stale bread, and a diminutive cube of
cheese, with, perhaps, a slip or two of pickled
cabbage; and Miss Barbara habitually contented
herself with a slice of bread-and-butter.  Yet all
of them would have submitted to the severest of