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 remember, I
believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a
girl she is -- whether good or naughty."
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