She was to be alone all
day. Mrs. Stebbens, their next neighbour, had fallen down and sprained
her ankle, and sent to know if Mrs. Lewis could do her promised day's
work in the village. Kitty was left in charge of the house and her sick
father. She looked around the room: what an ugly, dreary little room it
was!--dust, dirt, and cobwebs everywhere; her hood and shawl lying in
one corner; her mother's apron on the floor in the middle of the room;
the breakfast dishes not yet washed; the stove all spattered with grease
from the pork gravy; the hearth thickly covered with ashes; the paper
window-curtain hanging by one tack; and on the mantelpiece, behind the
stove, such an array of half-eaten apples, matches, forks, sticky spoons,
broken teacups, and dirty candlesticks, as would have frightened any one
less used to it than was Kitty. As she looked around her, a forlorn smile
came over her face, for she thought of Mr. Holbrook's words: "When you
brush up the floor, or brighten the fire to please your mother"--
"He don't know," she said to herself, "that mother don't care for
sweeping and such things; he don't know how we live.
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