The room was lighted by one window looking out on a yard;
the walls were bare; the boarded floor was uncovered. Two bedroom chairs
stood against the wall, and a kitchen-table was placed under the window.
On the table stood a glass tank filled with water, and ornamented in the
middle by a miniature pyramid of rock-work interlaced with weeds. Snails
clung to the sides of the tank; tadpoles and tiny fish swam swiftly in
the green water, slippery efts and slimy frogs twined their noiseless
way in and out of the weedy rock-work; and on top of the pyramid there
sat solitary, cold as the stone, brown as the stone, motionless as the
stone, a little bright-eyed toad. The art of keeping fish and reptiles
as domestic pets had not at that time been popularized in England;
and Magdalen, on entering the room, started back, in irrepressible
astonishment and disgust, from the first specimen of an Aquarium that
she had ever seen.
"Don't be alarmed," said a woman's voice behind her. "My pets hurt
nobody."
Magdalen turned, and confronted Mrs. Lecount. She had expected--founding
her anticipations on the letter which the housekeeper had written to
her--to see a hard, wily, ill-favored, insolent old woman.
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