Jane Eyre
Page 308"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my
heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able
to benefit her permanently."
"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some
young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has
probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in
restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines
of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability."
He stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks
sensible, but not at all handsome."
"She is so ill, St. John."
beauty are quite wanting in those features."
On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move,
rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry
toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with
relish: the food was good--void of the feverish flavour which had
hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt
comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and
desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I
put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on
the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before
On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My
black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were
removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was
quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and
rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room,
and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and
resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My
clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered
deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable
looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated,
staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage,
and found my way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a
generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known,
are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never
been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as
weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the
first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw
me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.