CHAPTER V 64
" Are you an orphan?"
" My mother is dead." " Are you happy here?"
" You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for the present: now I want to read."
But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day ' s fare would be like this.
After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o ' clock.
The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl-- she looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. " How can she bear it so quietly-- so firmly?" I asked of myself. " Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment-- beyond her situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams-- is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it-- her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can