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 at her from between the windows.  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.