Mrs. Pillbody
shook her head doubtingly, and said, "We shall see," adding that she
only hoped they would be as comfortable there as they were at Uncle
John's and Daniel's, that was all.
The school throve. The pupils came with great punctuality at their
different hours, and were unknown to each other and to the world. The
secret of the school would never have got abroad, but for the incaution
of a certain Mrs. Brigback (wife of a man who had been connected with
the City Government for two years on a nominal salary, and retired
rich). She was so delighted at the progress which she made in the
English rudiments, and in the French (being able to ask for bread, or
fish, or concerning a person's health, in that language), that she could
not refrain from confidentially advising another lady (the wife of a
street contractor, suddenly opulent) to take a few lessons from the same
accomplished teacher. The street contractor's wife was perfectly
indifferent to society, and had no wish to remedy the defects of her
early education. She promised secrecy, and the next day told the story,
at the expense of her friend, to a mutual female acquaintance, who
passed it on with embellishments to a third, who amused a fourth with
its narration; and so it went through a succession of confidential
people, until, one day, it became the subject of conversation in a stage
in which Marcus Wilkeson was riding.
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