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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte


44

similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into
the open air.

The garden was a wide enclosure, 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
conventlike 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
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com Digital Library-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte



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