For a long time the fear of seeming singular scared me away; but by degrees, as people became accustomed to me and my habits, and to such shades of peculiarity as were engrained in my nature--shades, certainly not striking enough to interest, and perhaps not prominent enough to offend, but born in and with me, and no more to be parted with than my identity--by slow degrees I became a frequenter of this strait and narrow path.

I made myself gardener of some tintless flowers that grew between its closely-ranked shrubs; I cleared away the relics of past autumns, choking up a rustic seat at the far end.

Borrowing of Goton, the cuisiniere, a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, I made this seat clean.

Madame saw me at work and smiled approbation: whether sincerely or not I don't know; but she _seemed_ sincere.
"Voyez-vous," cried she, "comme elle est propre, cette demoiselle Lucie?
Vous aimez done cette allee, Meess ?" "Yes," I said, "it is quiet and shady." "C'est juste," cried she with an air of bonte; and she kindly recommended me to confine myself to it as much as I chose, saying, that as I was not charged with the surveillance, I need not trouble myself to walk with the pupils: only I might permit her children to come there, to talk English with me.
On the night in question, I was sitting on the hidden seat reclaimed from fungi and mould, listening to what seemed the far-off sounds of the city.

Far off, in truth, they were not: this school was in the city's centre; hence, it was but five minutes' walk to the park, scarce ten to buildings of palatial splendour.