grown almost sanguine on the subject of her
brother-in-law—went her way, in apparel that
seemed to have been expressly prepared for some
festive occasion. Such are the changes of this
fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor
mortals!

When the house door closed with a bang and
a shake, it seemed to Miss Kimmeens to be a
very heavy house door, shutting her up in a
wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being,
as before stated, of a self-reliant and methodical
character, presently began to parcel out the long
summer-day before her.

And first she thought she would go all over
the house, to make quite sure that nobody with
a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got
under one of the beds or into one of the
cupboards. Not that she had ever before been
troubled by the image of anybody armed with a
great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed
to have been shaken into existence by the shake
and the bang of the great street door, reverberating
through the solitary house. So, little Miss
Kimmeens looked under the five empty beds of
the five departed pupils, and looked under her
own bed, and looked under Miss Pupford's bed,
and looked under Miss Pupford's assistant's bed.
And when she had done this, and was making
the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable
thought came into her young head, What a very
alarming thing it would be to find somebody
with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt
upright in a corner and pretending not to be
alive! However, Miss Kimmeens having finished
her inspection without making any such
uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little
manner to needlework, and began stitching away
at a great rate.

The silence all about her soon grew very
oppressive, and the more so because of the odd
inconsistency that the more silent it was, the more
noises there were. The noise of her own needle
and thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder
in her ears than the stitching of all the six
pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss
Pupford's assistant, all stitching away at once on a
nighly emulative afternoon. Then, the schoolroom
clock conducted itself in a way in which it had
never conducted itself before—fell lame, somehow,
and yet persisted in running on as hard and
as loud as it could: the consequence of which
behaviour was, that it staggered among the
minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and
knocked them about in all directions without
appearing to get on with its regular work.
Perhaps this alarmed the stairs; but be that as it
might, they began to creak in a most unusual
manner, and then the furniture began to crack,
and then poor little Miss Kimmeens, not liking
the furtive aspect of things in general, began to
sing as she stitched. But, 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 rose from the page,
had not more heart in it than her own singing
now. The book went to its shelf as the
needlework 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 between the windows. It was no relief
to escape from those monsters to the looking-
glass, for the reflexion 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 flavour 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, rather after the manner of the
lower animals, not to particularise the pigs.

But, this was by no means the worst of the
change wrought out in the naturally loving and
cheery little creature as the solitary day wore on.
She began to brood and be suspicious. She
discovered that she was full of wrongs and injuries.
All the people she knew, got tainted by her
lonely thoughts and turned bad.

It was all very well for Papa, a widower in
India, to send her home to be educated, and to
pay a handsome round sum every year for her to
Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to
his darling little daughter; but what did he care
for her being left by herself, when he was (as no
doubt he always was) enjoying himself in
company from morning till night? Perhaps he only
sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way.
It looked like it—looked like it to-day, that is,
for she had never dreamed of such a thing before.