These boots could never have been
cleaned since Jane had had them, and the twins firmly believed that they
always had been that queer dust-colour, until one day Nan told them that
when they were quite new they were black and shiny like ordinary boots.
Poor Jane always wore a brown, muddy, gingham skirt, frayed and
tattered, and the torn pieces hung like a frill from her knees to the
tops of her dust-coloured boots. Over her chest she wore a dark-grey
woollen cross-over, and on her head was a dirty shawl, which hung down
her back, and was pinned across her breast. Little straw-like wisps of
straight brown hair stuck out from under the shawl over her forehead
and ears. Her face was dried up and shrivelled, and her cheek-bones were
so sharp that they tried to prick through the skin.
Poor Jane did not often wash, so her wrinkles, and what Dumpty called
her "laughing lines," were marked quite black with dirt. Her lips were
not rosy and fresh like mummie's or Dumpty's, but they were of a
purple-grey colour, and when she opened her mouth, instead of a row of
pearly white teeth showing, there was only one very large yellow tooth,
which looked as if it could not stay much longer in the gum.
The twins always thought that she must live on milk, as babies do before
they have any teeth, but to their amazement they heard that last
Christmas, at the Old People's Tea, Poor Jane had eaten two plates of
salt beef.
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