Charles Dickens

“ I am not afraid to stay in the house alone. And you need not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do no harm."
"Oh! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty," exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, "your Bella could trust you anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head in this house (me and cook says) , but for its bright hair, is Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would think your Bella unkind."
"But if you are my Bella, you must go," returned the child.
"Must I?" said the housemaid, rising, on the whole, with alacrity. " ”

“ And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make quite sure that nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. Not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of anybody armed with a great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the bang of the great street door, reverberating through the solitary house. ”

“ Surely the softest and milkiest stone that fever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford The lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a disconcerted manner. ”

“ Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round total, one hundred times, for she was very popular) , and so went home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations and friends were all in India, far away. A self-helpful, steady little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens; a dimpled child too, and a loving.
So the great marriage day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as much fluttered as any bride could be (G! thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens) , went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that was sent for her. ”

“ There was a stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange exaggerated resemblances to human looks. ”

“ Miss Pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender years, is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, Miss Pupford's cook, and Miss Pupford's housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls the educated and domestic staff of her Lilliputian College. ”

“ If you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but I doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition would seem to possess) , you cannot do better than imitate the child, and come out too—from that very demoralizing hutch of yours. ”