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cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful
was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered
within myself whether every day's fare would be like this.

After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons
recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.

The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl
with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace
by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the
middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in
a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl -- she
looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of
great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor
blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of
all eyes. "How can she bear it so quietly -- so firmly?" I asked
of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the
earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking
of something beyond her punishment -- beyond her situation: of
something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams
-- is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor,
but I am sure they do not see it -- her sight seems turned in, gone
down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I
believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a
girl she is -- whether good or naughty."

Soon after five p.m. we had another meal, consisting of a small
mug of coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my
bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad
of as much more -- I was still hungry. Half-an-hour's recreation
succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of
oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such was my first day at Lowood.



CHAPTER VI


The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by
rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the
ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change
had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen
north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom
windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned
the contents of the ewers to ice.

Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading
was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came
at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality
was eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I
wished it had been doubled.

In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class,
and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I
had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now
to become an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to
learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult;

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