painting idea

Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence.
'Why,' thought I, 'does she not explain that she could neither
clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?'
My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a
skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from
time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether
I could mark, stitch, knit, etc.; till she dismissed me, I could not
pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements. When I
returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I
did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and
going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in
half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at
one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a
respectful curtsey; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed
her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her
neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to
Burns's eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers