She had but one comfort
left--that no one would prevent her from creeping up to her own
desolate garret, which was now the dreary substitute for Brownie's
stall. Thither the persecuting boys were not likely to follow her. And
if the rats were in that garret, so was the cat; or at least the cat
knew the way to it. There she might think in peace about some things
about which she had never before seemed to have occasion to think.
CHAPTER X.
Thus at home, if home it could be called, and at school, Annie's days
passed--as most days pass--with family resemblance and individual
difference wondrously mingled. She became interested in what she had to
learn, if not from the manner in which it was presented to her
comprehension, yet from the fact that she had to learn it. Happily or
unhappily, too, she began to get used to the sight of the penal
suffering of her schoolfellows. Nor had anything of the kind as yet
visited her; for it would have been hard for even a more savage master
than Mr Malison to find occasion, now that the first disabling
influences had passed away, to punish the nervous, delicate, anxious
little orphan, who was so diligent, and as quiet as a mouse that fears
to awake a sleeping cat.
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