I found myself in a good-sized apartment, scrupulously clean, though bare, compared with those I had hitherto seen. The well-scoured boards were carpetless; it contained two rows of green benches and desks, with an alley down the centre, terminating in an estrade , a teacher’s chair and table; behind them a tableau . On the walls hung two maps; in the windows flowered a few hardy plants; in short, here was a miniature classe ⁠—complete, neat, pleasant.

“It is a school then?” said I. “Who keeps it? I never heard of an establishment in this faubourg.”

“Will you have the goodness to accept of a few prospectuses for distribution in behalf of a friend of mine?” asked he, taking from his surtout-pocket some quires of these documents, and putting them into my hand. I looked, I read⁠—printed in fair characters⁠—

“ Externat de demoiselles. Numéro 7, Faubourg Clotilde. Directrice, Mademoiselle Lucy Snowe. 253

And what did I say to M. Paul Emanuel?

Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun.

I can no more remember the thoughts or the words of the ten minutes succeeding this disclosure, than I can retrace the experience of my earliest year of life: and yet the first thing distinct to me is the consciousness that I was speaking very fast, repeating over and over again⁠—