Weight matters

Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you."  _He_, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass voice, "Her size is small: what is her age?"  "Ten years."  "So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes.  Presently he addressed me--"Your name, little girl?"  "Jane Eyre, sir."  In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.  "Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"  Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a contrary opinion: I was silent.  Mrs. Reed answered for me by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst."  "Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;" and bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Reed's.  "Come here," he said.  I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!  "No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl.  Do you know where the wicked go after death?"  "They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.  "And what is hell?  Can you tell me that?"  "A pit full of fire."  "And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"  "No, sir."

I want an oreo!

ortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.  She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.  "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie.  She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester.  Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place.  I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.  And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"  "Eyre--Jane Eyre."  "Aire?  Bah!  I cannot say it.  Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.  We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."  "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.  I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.  "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"  "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"  "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.  Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses.  A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.  Shall I let you hear me sing now?"