sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly

attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine

girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion,

shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful

head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled;

the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with

ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.

These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs.

and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the

top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their

reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the

room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper,

questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now

proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who

was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the

dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other

matters called off and enchained my attention.

Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst

and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to

secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I

could only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back 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 sat 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 silveryplumageextended 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, 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 questions 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 Burns wore on her arm 'the untidy

badge;' scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss

Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had

blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of

man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes

like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind

to the full brightness of the orb.