第16页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第16页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that
disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from
him, and both died within a month of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, 'Poor
Miss Jane is to be pitied too, Abbot.'
'Yes,' responded Abbot; 'if she were a nice, pretty child, one
might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for
such a little toad as that.'
'Not a great deal, to be sure,' agreed Bessie: 'at any rate, a
beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same
condition.'
'Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!' cried the fervent Abbot. 'Little
darling!- with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet
colour as she has; just as if she were painted!- Bessie, I could fancy
a Welsh rabbit for supper.'
'So could I- with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down.' They went.
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CHAPTER IV
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FROM my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported
conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to
suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,-
I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and
weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new
allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed
surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since
my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever
between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep
in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my
time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the
drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to
school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not
long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now
more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted
aversion.
Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to
me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever
he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly
turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and
desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it
better to desist, and ran from me uttering execrations, and vowing I
had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as
hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either
that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to
follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I
heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how 'that nasty
Jane Eyre' had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather