And so, as I said before, Rose sat looking round the table, over her untasted food, and wondering why it was the children looked so old, so different from any children she ever saw before; and then she thought that, perhaps, when they were all alone together (as if the hawk-eyed Markham would ever leave them alone together), some little child might come up, and put its arm around her neck, and pity and love her. But day after day went monotonously by; they all went speechless to dinner, speechless to the school-room, speechless to bed. Twice a day they were walked in file round the paved yard, through which not a blade of grass dared struggle; walled in from the little children outside, whose merry laughs and shouts startled the little prisoners as if _those_ tones were unnatural, and only _their_ listless life real. As evening came on, they sat drowsily stooping over their tasks, or clicking the monotonous knitting-needle, till weary lids _would_ droop, and tired fingers resumed their task only at the rap from Markham's ferule. Rose saw it all now--she felt it--the torpor--gradually creeping over her, and numbing her senses; she ceased to talk about her mother. She did mechanically what she was bid; and, in the approving words of Markham, was "Quite a subdued child." At stated times, the committee came in to look at them, and remarked how inevitably children of the lower classes inherited poor constitutions from their depraved parents, and went away as satisfied as if, granting this to be the case, they were humanely endeavoring to remedy the inherited curse; as if they were not keeping those growing limbs in overstrained positions for hours, and depriving them of the blessed air and sunshine, which God intended childhood to revel in as freely as the birds and flowers. CHAPTER IV. "Well, what did you see in the city, Dolly?" asked a village gossip of the village milliner. "What are the summer fashions? Any thing new? Flounces worn, I suppose? Always will be, for tall people, they are so becoming. Mantillas worn, or shawls? Do they trim bonnets with flowers or ribbons? Do they wear heels on the shoes or tread spat down on the pavement? What is there new for sleeves? I am going to have a ninepenny calico made up, and I want to know all about every thing."