Indeed, although she afterwards passed many more sorrowful days, she never had to pass one so utterly miserable.

The spirits of the pit seemed to have broken loose and filled Murdoch Malison's school-room with the stench of their fire and brimstone.
As she sat longing for school to be over, that she might follow a plan which had a glimmer of hope in it, stupified with her labouring thoughts, and overcome with wretchedness, she fell fast asleep.

She was roused by a smart blow from the taws, flung with unerring aim at the back of her bare bended neck.

She sprang up with a cry, and, tottering between sleep and terror, proceeded at once to take the leather snake back to the master.

But she would have fallen in getting over the form had not Alec caught her in his arms.