She sat and glared while we ate our dinner, and she stood and glared when after school we assembled in the boot-room and prepared to escape to the playground.

Even there, if we ventured to lift our voices too near the house, a bad mark was shot at us from a window, and if an unlucky ball should come within range of her claws it was almost certainly "confiscated." I don't suppose Stonebridge House, except for Miss Henniker, was much worse than most schools for "backward and troublesome boys." We were fairly well fed, and fairly well taught, and fairly well quartered.

I even think we might have enjoyed ourselves now and then, had we been left to ourselves.

But we never _were_ left to ourselves.

From morning to night, and, for all we could tell, from night till morning, we were looked after by the lady housekeeper, and that one fact made Stonebridge House almost intolerable.
We were lounging about in the so-called "playground" that afternoon, and I was beginning to discover a little more about some of my new schoolfellows, when there appeared walking towards us down the gravel path a boy about my own age.
He was slender and delicate-looking, I remember, and his pale face contrasted strangely with his almost black clustering hair and his dark big eyes.