Elizabeth

there was no one who would have understood.

It was indeed well for her that as she lay awake in the darkness, her mind was forcibly distracted now and then by the strangeness of her surroundings.

It was perhaps well for her that she was reminded by her small body of material things

If this had not been so, the anguish of her young mind might have been too great for a child to bear.

But really, while the night was passing, she scarcely knew that she had a body at all, or remembered any other thing than one.

she kept whispering to herself.

It was not until long afterward that she realized that her bed had been so hard that she turned over and over in it to find a place to rest.

that the darkness seemed more intense than any she had ever known, and that the wind howled over the roof among the chimneys like something which wailed aloud.

And then there was something worse.

This was certain scufflings and scratchings and squeakings in the walls and behind the skirting boards.

She knew what they meant because Becky had described them.

They meant rats and mice who were either fighting with each other or playing together.

Once or twice, she even heard sharp-toed feet scurrying across the floor.

And she remembered in those after days, when she recalled things, that when first she heard them, she started up in bed and sat, trembling.

And when she lay down again, covered her head with the bedclothes,

The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made all at once.

She must begin as she is to go on, Miss Minchin said to Miss Amelia.

She must be taught at once what she is to expect.

Mariette had left the house the next morning.

The glimpse Sarah caught of her sitting room as she passed its open door showed her that everything had been changed.