I had a hot bath (you don’t know how grateful I was to be able to relax in a nice hot bath and just soak in it) and clean clothes before we sat down to some thing to eat. I had never seen so much food lay down on a table before as I did that evening and afterwards I went to my room for the night. I could not sleep that night, thinking what I had left behind. For the first time I felt warm and comfortable, with a fresh bed, with nice and clean linen. The room had a large fireplace with a roaring fire burning, with beautiful curtains and wallpaper to match, and the furniture was large. Everything matched so well with each other. I must have fallen asleep.
      The next morning I could hear the birds singing in the large garden. A young girl came into the room with fresh clothes for me. I had never seen anything like it, they were beautiful and how did they know my size? I got dressed and washed and brushed my hair and went down stair into the large dining room for my breakfast. At first I thought I was dreaming then gave myself a pinch on the hand, but it was all real, everything was there right in front of me. The master was sitting at the table he got up when I came into the room, showed me to my chair, and asked if I had a good sleep. Then he started to ask all kind of questions about myself. He wanted to know more about me. I asked why did he pick me from the street when there were other people he could have had?
      He told me about his family. He had a wife and daughter. His wife died some years ago but he didn’t say how. His daughter was killed in a carriage accident six months ago. At that point I thought I hope he didn’t want me to replace his daughter, but that was not the case. He showed me round the house, it was bigger than I thought. There were so many rooms and stairs. Then I asked the doctor about a room we had just passed but didn’t answer. Then we went in to the garden it was so large that you could get lost in it, there even a maze it was so big.
      I had been living at the big house for a few weeks but didn’t see much of the master. During that time I became friendly with the young man. As time went by I became more than a friend. We sat out in the garden at night just talking and keeping each other company. He told me his name was Albert and he was Dr Anderson’s lab assistant and he told me how he came to be at the big house. I asked Albert how long he had worked for the doctor and if he knew about his family.
      Albert had been with Dr J. Anderson for about ten years. He was a student at the doctor's university and admired the his research. When Albert finished his university degree, he couldn’t get a job so Dr J Anderson happened to be looking for an assistant and offered him a job. Albert had no family. His parents were both dead and he had no sisters or brothers, so that was even better for the doctor
      We met in the garden one evening and I asked him why the doctor had not shown his face as it been a few weeks now since I last saw him. Could he tell me what was he working on? Albert didn’t know much himself about he was up to, but he would try and find out and let me know.
      One evening I told Albert that there was some thing strange going on, as I had been up all night, hearing foot steps going back and forward from the stairway to the locked room. He heard the same thing, and that made us more suspicious.