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CHAPTER III
The Home-coming
Half and hour later Ella sat alone in the middle of the big drawing-room feeling very unhappy. She had not yet seen her stepmother or her stepsisters, who were out visiting. But she had found many traces of their presence in the house.
First of all, when she had gone up to her own room she found to her dismay that somebody else had been using it. All her pictures had been taken down from the walls and replaced by ugly steel engravings. The cupboard containing her toys was nowhere to be seen, and in its place stood a tall swinging mirror. The window-seat, where she used to sit curled up on wet days reading a story-book or looking out into the garden, was not there either, nor were the pretty chintz curtains. Instead of the latter, the window was draped with an ugly red brocade, so dark and heavy that it made the entire room seem dull. Facing the window was a queerly shaped flat table with a sort of well in it, and in the well were little pots of white powder and some soft stuff that looked like cream, and sticks of red paint. There was also a small porcelain box containing little patches cut out of black plaster, which Ella knew ladies stuck on their cheeks when they were going out visiting or to a ball. Besides these, there was a hare’s foot for dabbing powder on, and several powder-puffs, and half a dozen