Read it through once

Being a reception-room, it was handsomely fitted up with shelves upon which reposed a number of nicely-bound books, chiefly of French plays and classics. To this room was the unwilling pupil sent each morning to practise alone the exercises previously set her by the “demure little Miss Essex,” the new music mistress; “sent alone, most comfortably out of sight and hearing of every individual in the house.”