The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to
exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one
side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of
little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to
cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they
would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January,
all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and
looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not
positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under
foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The
stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but
sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in
the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to
their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow
cough.
As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice
of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I
was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a
pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and,
trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the
unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to
the employment of watching and thinking. My reflections were too
undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where
I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an
immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the
future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like
garden, and then up at the house--a large building, half of which
seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part,
containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and
latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet
over the door bore this inscription:"Lowood Institution.--This portion was rebuilt A.D.--, by Naomi
Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county." "Let your
light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and
glorify your Father which is in heaven."-- St. Matt. v. 16.
I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation
belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I
was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and
endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and
the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me
made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near;
she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent:
from where I stood I could see the title--it was "Rasselas;" a name
that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning
a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly "Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of
asking her to lend it to me some day.