I had so perfectly¹ expected that the return of my pupils would be marked by a demonstration² that I was freshly upset at having to take into account that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily³ denouncing and caressing⁴ me, they made no allusion⁵ to my having failed them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. Grose’s odd face. I did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in some way bribed⁶ her to silence; a silence that, however, I would engage to break down on the first private opportunity. This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes with her in the housekeeper’s room, where, in the twilight⁷, amid a smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all swept and garnished⁸, I found her sitting in pained placidity⁹ before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her best: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, shining room, a large clean image of the “put away”—of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy.