'Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder?'
Rosa thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and
everything had a strange and an uncomfortable appearance of seeming
to wait for something that wouldn't come. NO. She began to think,
that, now the Cloisterham school-days had glided past and gone, the
gritty stages would begin to set in at intervals and make
themselves wearily known!
Yet what did Rosa expect? Did she expect Miss Twinkleton? Miss
Twinkleton duly came. Forth from her back parlour issued the
Billickin to receive Miss Twinkleton, and War was in the
Billickin's eye from that fell moment.
Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her, having all
Rosa's as well as her own. The Billickin took it ill that Miss
Twinkleton's mind, being sorely disturbed by this luggage, failed
to take in her personal identity with that clearness of perception
which was due to its demands. Stateliness mounted her gloomy
throne upon the Billickin's brow in consequence. And when Miss
Twinkleton, in agitation taking stock of her trunks and packages,
of which she had seventeen, particularly counted in the Billickin
herself as number eleven, the B. found it necessary to repudiate.
'Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing,' said she, with a
candour so demonstrative as to be almost obtrusive, 'that the
person of the 'ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle, nor a carpet-
bag.
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