While the present century was in its teens, and on one
sunshiny morning in June, there drove up to the great iron
gate of Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies, on
Chiswick Mall, a large family coach, with two fat horses in
blazing harness, driven by a fat coachman in a three-
cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four miles an hour. A
black servant, who reposed on the box beside the fat
coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage
drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton’s shining brass plate, and
as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were
seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old
brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have
recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss
Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots
in the window of that lady’s own drawing-room.
‘It is Mrs. Sedley’s coach, sister,’ said Miss Jemima.
‘Sambo, the black servant, has just rung the bell; and the
coachman has a new red waistcoat.’
‘Have you completed all the necessary preparations
incident to Miss Sedley’s departure, Miss Jemima?’ asked
Miss Pinkerton herself, that majestic lady; the Semiramis of