“All day long?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And every day?”
“Oh, no, sir, not every day. I go to Sunday school on Sundays.”
“But on all other days you are kept confined to that room all day long?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you look just as if you were, you poor little pale thing, and that is the truth. It is horrid. I’ll speak to my mother about it. Why, you ought to be romping all over the house, you know, and going to pantomimes o’ Christmas, like other children. Say, little a—a—What is your name?”
“Anna Drusilla Sterling, sir,” said the child, beginning to grow restive under all this questioning, and to swing her shoulders from side to side, after the manner of some children when saying their lessons.
“There—don’t do that; it’s ugly,” said Mr. Alexander.
And the swinging instantly ceased.