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impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its
ordinary .
“Hardened girl!” exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; “nothing can
correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away.”
Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from
the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into
her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.
The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction
of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee
swallowed at five o’clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied
hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the
schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning—its fires being
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allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure,
the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the
licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome
sense of liberty.
On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd
flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and
tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling
lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind,
and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against
the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could
distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan
of the wind outside.
Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this
would have been the hour when I should most keenly have
regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my
heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it
was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and
feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to
deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.
Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way
to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I
found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by
the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of
the embers.
“Is it still ‘Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her.
“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.”
And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this.
“Now,” thought I, “I can perhaps get her to talk.” I sat down by
her on the floor.
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“What is your name besides Burns?”
“Helen.”
“Do you come a long way from here?”
“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of
Scotland.”
“Will you ever go back?”
“I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.”
“You must wish to leave Lowood?”
“No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education;
and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that
object.”
“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?”
“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.”
“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist
her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I
should break it under her nose.”
“Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr.
Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a
great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a
smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty
action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with
you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”
“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to
stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a
great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.”
“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it
is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be
required to bear.”
I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this do
