A long room with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates.

Scraps of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor.

Some silkworms' houses, made of the same materials, are scattered over the desks.

Two miserable little white mice, left behind by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their red eyes for anything to eat.

A bird, in a cage very little bigger than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither sings nor chirps.