“And did none of them ever grow older?”
“No! Nobody ever grew older after that.”
“And did none of them ever die?”
“O, no, no, no, Gran!” exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. “Nobody ever died.”
“Ah, Major, Major!” says Mrs. Lirriper, smiling benignly upon me, “this beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy’s Story, Major, for the Boy’s Story is the best that is ever told.”
Miss Pupford’s school in Tom Tiddler’s Ground reveals the foolish conventional formalism of some teachers before their pupils; exposes the pretences of some teachers in private schools—“Miss Pupford’s assistant with the Parisian accent, who never conversed with a Parisian and never was out of England”; and condemns the practice of sending mere children long distances from home to be trained and educated: “Kitty Kimmeens had to remain behind in Miss Pupford’s school during the holidays, because her friends and relations were all in India, far away.”
In Edwin Drood Dickens had begun a description of the school: “On the trim gate inclosing the courtyard of which is a resplendent brass plate flashing forth the legend: ‘Seminary for Young Ladies. Miss Twinkleton.’”
The chief thing revealed by the brief description given of it is the formal conventionality of most teachers in such institutions, the unreality of manner and tone and character shown by most teachers in the schoolroom.
How much greater Miss Twinkleton’s power would have been to help in developing human hearts and heads, if she could have been more truly human during the day! She did not deceive the young ladies either by her formalism. They merely said, “What a pretending old thing Miss Twinkleton is!”
When the rumour of the quarrel between Neville Landless and Edwin Drood reached the seminary, and began to cause dangerous excitement among the young ladies, Miss Twinkleton deemed it her duty to quiet their minds.