I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon.

The breakfast- room door opened.
"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.
"Where the dickens is she!" he continued.

"Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad animal!" "It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once-- "She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack." And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.
"What do you want ?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.
"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed ?'" was the answer.

"I want you to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities.

He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks.