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This ominous tool she presented
to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and
without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly
and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch
of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from
my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a
sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her
pensive face altered its ordinary expression.

"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
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.

"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.

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