Through a series of the queerest little dormitories--which, I heard afterwards, had once been nuns' cells: for the premises were in part of ancient date--and through the oratory--a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils--she conducted me to an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny beds.

A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate: a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spirituous essence--a smell, in short, of whisky.
Beside a table, on which flared the remnant of a candle guttering to waste in the socket, a coarse woman, heterogeneously clad in a broad striped showy silk dress, and a stuff apron, sat in a chair fast asleep.

To complete the picture, and leave no doubt as to the state of matters, a bottle and an empty glass stood at the sleeping beauty's elbow.
Madame contemplated this remarkable tableau with great calm; she neither smiled nor scowled; no impress of anger, disgust, or surprise, ruffled the equality of her grave aspect; she did not even wake the woman! Serenely pointing to a fourth bed, she intimated that it was to be mine; then, having extinguished the candle and substituted for it a night-lamp, she glided through an inner door, which she left ajar--the entrance to her own chamber, a large, well-furnished apartment; as was discernible through the aperture.
My devotions that night were all thanksgiving.

Strangely had I been led since morning--unexpectedly had I been provided for.

Scarcely could I believe that not forty-eight hours had elapsed since I left London, under no other guardianship than that which protects the passenger-bird--with no prospect but the dubious cloud-tracery of hope.
I was a light sleeper; in the dead of night I suddenly awoke.