And I was confirmed in the dead girl's
embroidered dress."
During the five-and-twenty years that he had held the position of
justice of the peace, the magistrate had listened to many
confessions, wrung from wretched souls by stern necessity, or
sorrow, but never had his heart been moved as it now was, by this
narrative, told with such uncomplaining anguish, and in a tone of
such sincerity. However she resumed her story. "The confirmation
over, our life became as gloomily monotonous as before; we read
the same pious books and did the same work at the same hours as
formerly. It seemed to me that I was stifling in this atmosphere.
I gasped for breath, and thought that anything would be preferable
to this semblance of existence, which was not real life. I was
thinking of applying for the 'good situation,' which had so often
been mentioned to me, when one morning I was summoned into the
steward's office--a mysterious and frightful place to us children.
He himself was a stout, dirty man, wearing large blue spectacles
and a black silk skullcap; and from morning until night, summer
and winter, he sat writing at a desk behind a little grating, hung
with green curtains. Round the room were ranged the registers, in
which our names were recorded and our appearances described,
together with the boxes containing the articles found upon us,
which were carefully preserved to assist in identifying us should
occasion arise.
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