One of their fellow-pupils, among other statements even worse, gives me
the following:--The dormitory in which Maria slept was a long room,
holding a row of narrow little beds on each side, occupied by the pupils;
and at the end of this dormitory there was a small bed-chamber opening
out of it, appropriated to the use of Miss Scatcherd. Maria's bed stood
nearest to the door of this room. One morning, after she had become so
seriously unwell as to have had a blister applied to her side (the sore
from which was not perfectly healed), when the getting-up bell was heard,
poor Maria moaned out that she was so ill, so very ill, she wished she
might stop in bed; and some of the girls urged her to do so, and said
they would explain it all to Miss Temple, the superintendent. But Miss
Scatcherd was close at hand, and her anger would have to be faced before
Miss Temple's kind thoughtfulness could interfere; so the sick child
began to dress, shivering with cold, as, without leaving her bed, she
slowly put on her black worsted stockings over her thin white legs (my
informant spoke as if she saw it yet, and her whole face flushed out
undying indignation). Just then Miss Scatcherd issued from her room,
and, without asking for a word of explanation from the sick and
frightened girl, she took her by the arm, on the side to which the
blister had been applied, and by one vigorous movement whirled her out
into the middle of the floor, abusing her all the time for dirty and
untidy habits.
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