Snapp (another of our teachers) smiles at Blight's old-fashioned learning. She says it is quite out of date, and only fit for a charity school. Mademoiselle (the French teacher) quizzes her dress, and makes fun of her melancholy, and talks of her contemptuously, as, "ça," which I am told is the same as if you were speaking of a cook, or a poor relation, and called her "it." Fraulein (the German mistress) mimics her, and laughs over her patient endurance and old-maidish manners.
It must be confessed that poor Blight's appearance affords plenty of temptation for this cruel ridicule. She is certainly very ugly, and no one ever loses an opportunity of telling her so. The worst is, the example set by the schoolmistress is followed with the greatest zest by the schoolgirls, who indulge in all kinds of practical jokes at her expense. She is unfortunately very short-sighted, and consequently they are always hiding her spectacles, or else rubbing the glasses over with butter or ink. No one considers there is any harm in this, for the girls have grown to look upon Blight as "fair game;" and if any one can put her into a passion, it is considered "rare fun," and thought just as harmless as throwing bread-pills at one another when the mistress's back is turned. When there is no other amusement going on, the cry is always raised, "Let's go and tease Blight," and you see the whole school rushing forward as eagerly as if a gypsy suddenly appeared at the play-ground gate to tell us our fortunes. But if any one is in trouble, Blight is the first to screen her. If any girl is ill, Blight will sit up with her all night, and will pet and nurse the little sufferer until she almost fancies herself at home; and when the little invalid has grown well again, and has recovered the use of her tongue and fingers, Blight never says a word about the ungrateful return, but bears it all like a martyr, which, in truth, she really is. Ugly as she is, I really think there are times when I could throw my arms round her neck, and kiss her for her goodness.
I cannot tell you all the nicknames which they have for her face and person, nor would it altogether be agreeable for you, Nelly, I think to hear them. Suffice it to say, the poor thing, is very old—thirty-nine, if she is a day; and she has the funniest little head of hair, every hair appearing to be pulled as tight, and to be almost as wide apart, as the strings of a harp. The top of her head is mounted with a round knot of hair no bigger than the worsted ball you see on a Scotch cap. It's a wonder to me she doesn't wear a wig or a cap of some sort, though perhaps it would be too dangerous, as every one would undoubtedly be trying to pull it off. The girls declare no one can recollect her having a new gown. Every quarter a very thin, snuff-brown silk, on a very stiff lining, is brought out as Sunday best; but it is only the old one turned and altered a bit, for that little wicked thing, Jessie Joy, put a drop of ink on one of the breadths on purpose to find it out; and there it is still, journeying about backwards and forwards, first in front and then behind; now on the top, just under her chin, and next down at the bottom, sweeping the floor, precisely as the faded silk is twisted or turned to hide the creases and the ravages of old age. The girls calculate the period they have been at school by this venerable gown; and it's no unusual thing to hear them, when disputing about any particular date, settling it at once by referring to the age of Miss Blight's brown silk, saying, "I recollect very well it was in the ninth quarter of Blight's Sunday gown;" and a reference to a date of this kind is considered as indisputable as to a Family Bible, or an old almanac.
But these are small matters, Nelly, which I am half ashamed to tell you, for under this poor garment there is a heart of so much goodness as to make us wonder at the strange hiding-places in which virtue sometimes delights in lurking, as if from modesty it had taken every precaution not to be found out. What do you think, Nelly? I am told by Meggy that poor Blight supports an old bedridden mother! She has no positive proof of this, but she is morally sure of it. This, then, accounts for the reason why the poor governess is always working so hard—never resting from crocheting purses, and knitting antimacassars sufficient to cover all the sofas in the world. If you ask her for whom she makes this extraordinary quantity (you can't think, Nell, how quickly and beautifully she works), she simply replies, her pale face becoming paler, "for a dear friend;" and that is all we can get out of her to reward our vulgar curiosity. This must be the truth, for at all hours, both early and late, has she got a needle in her hand. There is a story that she wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night, and works whilst the girls around her are sleeping. But no one knows the cause of her excessive industry, and I really think she would be miserable if it were known, and her fingers would not ply their work of love half so nimbly if she suspected that the girls, as they watched her with such fixed curiosity, were acquainted with the sacred object for which she was toiling. It is a puzzle when or where she sells all the things she finishes, and no one exactly likes to find out, though one or two attempts have been made, but always ending, I am happy to say, in the most complete failure. It makes me sad to watch her anxiety when there is a postman's knock at the door. She starts up in her seat, and pauses for a while in her work (the only pause it ever knows), until she gives out the letters; and then you would pity her with all your heart to see how disappointed she is—what a vacancy of hope falls like a dark shadow upon her face—when she learns that there is not one for her! Though, when there is a letter, it is scarcely any better. She sighs heavily, looks sometimes at a little locket she carries in her breast, and hurries on with her work quicker than ever, as if the purse she was finishing was to contain her own money instead of somebody else's, and she had so much that she wanted the use of it immediately.
If you have any fancy-work you want doing (any braces or cigar-cases you wish to give away as presents), will you send it to me, Nelly, and I will ask Blight, if I can do so without offending her, to do it for me?
I'm obliged to finish my letter, Nelly, for the fact is I have been writing the latter part of it in our bedroom with a piece of wax candle I took out of a candlestick there was in the hall, and there is only just sufficient left to enable me to scramble into bed, and to assure you how dearly you are loved by
Yours affectionately,
KITTY CLOVER.
P. S.—I intend that my bootlace shall come undone somewhere about the grocer's, when we are out a walking to-morrow, so that I may lag behind, and drop this in the post unobserved. Oh! dear—the candle's gone out. What sh—
