"
Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me.
There was but one sane inference: someone had taken
a liberty rather gross. That was what, repeatedly, I dipped
into my room and locked the door to say to myself.
We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion;
some unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made
his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point
of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me
such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion.
The good thing, after all, was that we should surely see
no more of him.
This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what,
essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work.
My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing
could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it
in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy,
leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the distaste
I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray prose of my office.
There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no long grind;
so how could work not be charming that presented itself as daily beauty?
It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of the schoolroom.
I don't mean by this, of course, that we studied only fiction
and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort of interest
my companions inspired.
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