Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/776

342 it was not her own voice that she heard—it was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and singing excessively flat, without any heart—so, as that would never mend matters, she left off again.

By and by, the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But no; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she loved for her eyes to fall on when they arose from the page, had not more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its shelf as the needle-work had gone to its box, and since something must be done—thought the child, I'll go put my room to rights.

She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking dread of the little friend's bedstead? But she did. There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menacing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner: a most vicious chest of drawers snarled at her from beneath the window. It was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking-glass, for the reflection said, "What? Is that you all alone there? How you stare?" And the background was all a great void stare as well.

The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There were good provisions in the pantry, but their right flavor and relish had evaporated with the five pupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford's assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger?

The very grace came out wrong, for who were "we" who were going to receive and be thankful? So Miss Kimmeens was not thankful, and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style—gobbling it up, in short,