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 highly 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