I went upstairs as she told me, and it was so dull that I said the multiplication table three times forwards and once backwards, and before that I’d repeated nearly all the poetry I knew, besides trying to reckon out how much the horse’s shoe would cost if you paid a farthing for the first nail and doubled it for each one. Of course I pretended I was in the Bastille all the time, but there weren’t any rats or toads or anything nice, and I was quite glad even to see the housemaid. It wasn’t the real housemaid either, because she was old, and disagreeable; this was one I hadn’t seen before. She brought me some bread and milk for my supper. “I dare say you’re missing your little brothers and sisters,” she said. I hadn’t thought of it before, but directly she said it, I knew that that was why I was so miserable. I seemed suddenly to want Mother and them all so dreadfully, that I could hardly help crying. Lizzie (the servant told me that was her name, and that she was the hupandowngirl, not the housemaid), well, she was most nice; she seemed the nicest person in the house. She said she used to cry herself to sleep every night when she first went out to service. She told me about her home too, and that there were twelve of them, and that they used to sleep four in one bed, and lovely things like that. She was just telling me about her pigs, when the bell rang rather angrily. “Lor, I must be off, the Missus will be in a fine taking,” Lizzie said, and she ran away. When Lizzie had gone, I was just going to be miserable, but suddenly she rushed in again, and threw a lot of newspaper things on to the bed. “I thought maybe they’d amuse you, but don’t let the Missus see ’em,” she said, and she tore out, because the bell was ringing more crossly than ever. I certainly did know that I oughtn’t to read books when I’d been sent upstairs in disgrace, and I’d better confess that at once. But then it didn’t feel to me that I’d done anything to be punished for, and it did seem so tempting. First I thought I’d just look at the pictures--for there was one on each cover--of gentlemen shooting each other and ladies in their dressing-gowns, with their hair down, and things like that, all most exciting. So I began just to turn over the leaves to see the names of the people in the pictures, but before I knew what I was doing I was reading one story straight through. I truthfully forgot then about it’s being naughty.