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scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper -- a
bun or a cheese-cake -- then she would sit on the bed while I ate
it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me,
and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane." When
thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being
in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always
be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or
task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee
must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she
was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative;
so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery
tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and
person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black
hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion;
but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas
of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her
to any one else at Gateshead Hall.

It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:
Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been
summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm
garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she
was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper
and hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for
traffic, and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the
vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains
with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants;
that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young
lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell: and
Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made
a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted
it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but some
of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza,
fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust
it to her mother, at a usurious rate of interest -- fifty or sixty
per cent.; which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her
accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.

Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and
interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers,
of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was
making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it
arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me
as a sort of under-nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs,
&c.). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went
to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's
house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana

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