The door was open a little way, and Lucy had a great mind to go in without knocking. But, then, she remembered that it was proper for her to knock at her father’s door, and she accordingly did so. Nobody answered. Then Lucy pushed the door a little, so as to open it wider, in order to see whether her father was there.
He was not there. There was nobody there. Lucy pushed the door open farther, and walked in.
There was a lamp burning upon a table which stood against the window. Several books and papers were upon the table. One great book was lying open. There was a round, black inkstand not far from the book. It had a large, conical hole in the middle of it, which led down to the ink; and there were several smaller holes around, near the edge, to put the pen into. There was a pen with its point in one of these holes, the top of it leaning over to one side.
“Now, here’s a pen and ink all ready,” said Lucy; “but where’s my father?”
Lucy walked up to the table, and began to look at the book which was lying open. “What a great book!” she said. “I wonder if I can read in such a great book. Here are some big letters on the top. I can read such big letters as these.”
There were three big letters, in two places, on the top of each page; and Lucy began to read them.
“H-o-n,” said Lucy, reading—“H-o-n spells hon; but I don’t know what hon means. I wonder what this book is about.”
But Lucy could not find out what it was about, and so she thought that, as her father was away, she would take the pen and write herself a letter. She accordingly put her paper down upon the corner of the table, and then, reaching over the great book, she dipped the pen carefully into the conical hole in the middle of the inkstand. She then drew the pen very slowly and cautiously to the paper, secretly feeling, however, all the time, that she was doing wrong.
Lucy made several marks upon her paper, and then the ink in her pen failed. She accordingly reached back to the inkstand to get some more. She thought that she did not dip her pen far enough down before, and that that was the reason why the ink failed so quick. She, therefore, this time, dipped the pen in so far that the point of it touched the bottom of the inkstand; and so, when it came up, it was full of ink.
It was too full of ink, in fact, so that a little drop hung from the point just ready to fall; and very unfortunately, just as Lucy had got the pen almost across the great book, the drop did fall, and it made quite a large, round spot upon the middle of one of the pages.