Aunt Judy paused, but no one spoke.

“What!” cried she suddenly, “will nobody groan?  Then I must groan myself!” which she did, and a most unearthly noise she made; so much so, that two or three of the little ones turned round to look at the swelling red curtains, just to make sure the howl did not proceed from thence.

After which Aunt Judy continued her tale:-

“So much for night and going to bed, about which there is nothing more to relate, as the little Victims were uncommonly good sleepers, and seldom awoke till long after daylight.

“Well now, what do you think?  By the time they had had a good night, they felt so comfortable in their beds, that they were quite contented to remain there; and then, of course, their tormentors never rested till they had forced them to get up!  Poor little things!  Just think of their being made to go to bed at night, when they most disliked it, and then made to get up in the morning, when they wanted to stay in bed!  It certainly was, as they always said, ‘very, very hard.’  This was, of course, a winter misery, when the air was so frosty and cold that it was very unpleasant to jump out into it from a warm nest.  Terrible scenes took place on these occasions, I assure you, for sometimes the wretched Victims would sit shivering on the floor, crying over their socks and shoes instead of putting them on, (which they had no spirit for,) and then the savage creatures who managed them would insult them by irritating speeches.

“‘Come, Miss So-and-So,’ one would say, ’don’t sit fretting there; there’s a warm fire, and a nice basin of bread-and-milk waiting for you, if you will only be quick and get ready.’

“Get ready! a nice order indeed!  It meant that they must wash themselves and be dressed before they would be allowed to touch a morsel of food.

“But it is of no use dwelling on the unfeelingness of those keepers.  One day one of them actually said:-

“’If you knew what it was to have to get up without a fire to come to, and without a breakfast to eat, you would leave off grumbling at nothing.’

“Nothing! they called it nothing to have to get out of a warm bed into the fresh morning air, and dress before breakfast!

“Well, my dears,” pursued Aunt Judy, after waiting here a few seconds, to see if anybody would groan, “I shall take it for granted you feel for the getting-up misery as well as the going-to-bed one, although you have not groaned as I expected.  I will just add, in conclusion, that the summer getting-up misery was just the reverse of this winter one.  Then the poor little wretches were expected to wait till their nursery was dusted and swept; so there they had to lie, sometimes for half-an-hour, with the sun shining in upon them, not allowed to get up and come out into the dirt and dust!

“Of course, on those occasions they had nothing to do but squabble among themselves and teaze; and I assure you they had every now and then a very pleasant little revenge on their keepers, for they half worried them out of their lives by disturbances and complaints, and at any rate that was some comfort to them, although very often it hindered the nursery from being done half as soon as it would have been if they had been quiet.