I Say No. Wilkie Collins

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      BOOK THE FIRST—AT SCHOOL.

      CHAPTER I. THE SMUGGLED SUPPER.

      Outside the bedroom the night was black and still. The small rain fell too softly to be heard in the garden; not a leaf stirred in the airless calm; the watch-dog was asleep, the cats were indoors; far or near, under the murky heaven, not a sound was stirring.

      Inside the bedroom the night was black and still.

      Miss Ladd knew her business as a schoolmistress too well to allow night-lights; and Miss Ladd’s young ladies were supposed to be fast asleep, in accordance with the rules of the house. Only at intervals the silence was faintly disturbed, when the restless turning of one of the girls in her bed betrayed itself by a gentle rustling between the sheets. In the long intervals of stillness, not even the softly audible breathing of young creatures asleep was to be heard.

      The first sound that told of life and movement revealed the mechanical movement of the clock. Speaking from the lower regions, the tongue of Father Time told the hour before midnight.

      A soft voice rose wearily near the door of the room. It counted the strokes of the clock—and reminded one of the girls of the lapse of time.

      “Emily! eleven o’clock.”

      There was no reply. After an interval the weary voice tried again, in louder tones:

      “Emily!”

      A girl, whose bed was at the inner end of the room, sighed under the heavy heat of the night—and said, in peremptory tones, “Is that Cecilia?”

      “Yes.”

      “What do you want?”

      “I’m getting hungry, Emily. Is the new girl asleep?”

      The new girl answered promptly and spitefully, “No, she isn’t.”

      Having a private object of their own in view, the five wise virgins of Miss Ladd’s first class had waited an hour, in wakeful anticipation of the falling asleep of the stranger—and СКАЧАТЬ