Previous - Next

on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my
slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped
notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from
my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every
eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick
up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.
It came.

"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after
-- "It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw
breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her."
Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! "Let the child who broke
her slate come forward!"

Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but
the two great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs
and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently
assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel -

"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be
punished."

The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.

"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought
I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co.
bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.

"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high
one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.

"Place the child upon it."

And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition
to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up
to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard
of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses
and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.

Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.

"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers,
and children, you all see this girl?"

Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses
against my scorched skin.

"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary
form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He
has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a
marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already
found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is
the case."

A pause -- in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and
to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer
to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.

"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,
"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to
warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is
a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently
an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against
her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company,

Previous - Next