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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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83 you don’t live at Gateshead?’ ‘I live at the lodge: the old porter has left.’ ‘Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?’ but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother. ‘You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,’ continued Mrs. Leaven. ‘I daresay they’ve not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.’ ‘Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?’ ‘Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and-what do you think?- he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always quarrelling.’ ‘Well, and what of John Reed?’ ‘Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got-plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.’ ‘What does he look like?’ ‘He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips.’ ‘And Mrs. Reed?’ ‘Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John’s conduct does not please her-he spends a deal of money.’ ‘Did she send you here, Bessie?’ ‘No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach.’ ‘I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.’ I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration. ‘No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as a child.’ I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification. ‘I daresay you are clever, though,’ continued Bessie, by way of solace. ‘What can you do? Can you play on the piano?’ ‘A little.’ There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed. |
