This reception was something novel to me, who had cycled over thousands of miles, and I was not at all inclined to accept it at the hands of the boy.  I stepped into the hall.  “Can I see the master of this house?” said I.

“There ain’t none,” he answered, gruffly.

“Well, then, I want to see whoever is in charge.”

He looked as if he were about to say that he was in charge, but he had no opportunity for such impertinence.  A female figure came into the hall and advanced towards me.  She stopped in an attitude of interrogation.

“I was just inquiring,” I said, with a bow—­for I saw that the new-comer was not a servant—­“if I could be accommodated here for the night, but the boy informed me that cyclers are not received here.”

“What!” she exclaimed, and turned as if she would speak to the boy, but he had vanished.  “That is a mistake, sir,” she said to me.  “Very few wheelmen do stop here, as they prefer a hotel farther on, but we are glad to entertain them when they come.”

It was not very light in the hall in which we stood, but I could see that this lady was young, that she was of medium size, and good-looking.

“Will you walk in, sir, and register?” she said.  “I will have your wheel taken around to the back.”

I followed her into a large apartment to the right of the hall—­evidently a room of general assembly.  Near the window was a desk with a great book on it.  As I stood before this desk and she handed me a pen, her face was in the full light of the window, and glancing at it, the thought struck me that I now knew why Miss Putney did not wish me to stop at the Holly Sprig Inn.  I almost laughed as I turned away my head to write my name.  I was amused, and at the same time I could not help feeling highly complimented.  It cannot but be grateful to the feelings of a young man to find that a very handsome woman objects to his making the acquaintance of an extremely pretty one.

When I laid down the pen she stepped up and looked at my name and address.

“Oh,” said she, “you are the schoolmaster at Walford?” She seemed to be pleased by this discovery, and smiled in a very engaging way as she said, “I am much interested in that school, for I received a great part of my education there.”  “Indeed!” said I, very much surprised.  “But I do not exactly understand.  It is a boys’ school.”

“I know that,” she answered, “but both boys and girls used to go there.  Now the girls have a school of their own.”

As she spoke I could not help contrasting in my mind what the school must have been with what it was now.

She stepped to the door and told a woman who was just entering the room to show me No. 2.  The woman said something which I did not hear, although her tones indicated surprise, and then conducted me to my room.

This was an exceedingly pleasant chamber on the first floor at the back of the house.  It was furnished far better than the quarters generally allotted to me in country inns, or, in fact, in hostelries of any kind.  There was great comfort and even simple elegance in its appointments.