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exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse.
Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements,
weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to
save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my
tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native
of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its
prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut -- this girl is --
a liar!"

Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in
perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts
produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,
while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two
younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.

"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable
lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own
daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl
repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her
excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young
ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their
purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews
of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and,
teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to
stagnate round her."

With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button
of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed
to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in
state from the room. Turning at the door, my judge said -

"Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one
speak to her during the remainder of the day."

There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear
the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room,
was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What
my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all
rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came
up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange
light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray
sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a
martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength
in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head,
and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight
question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality
of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she
again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that
it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up
her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a
reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen

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