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The hing I reer is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightre, and seeing before a terrible red gre, crossed with thick bck bars. I heard oices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if ffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uainty, and an all-predonating sense of terror fused facuies. Ere long, I beca aware that so one was handling ; lifting up and supp in a sitting posture, and that re tenderly than I had eer been raised or upheld before. I rested head against a pillow or an ar a easy.
Ies re the cloud of bewildernt dissoled: I knew quite well that I was in own bed, and that the red gre was the nursery fire. It was night: a dle burnt oable; Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentlen sat in a chair near  illow, leaning oer .
I fe an inepressible relief, a soothing i of prote and security, when I khat there was a stranger in the roo an indiidual not belonging to Gateshead., and not reted to Mrs. Reed. Turning froBessie (though her presence was far less obnoious to than that of Abbot, for instance, would hae been), I scrutihe face of the gentlen: I knew hi it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sotis called in by Mrs. Reed when the serants were ailing: for herself and the children she eloyed a physi.
“Well, who aI?” he asked.
I pronounced his na, hiat the sa ti hand: he took it, sling and saying, “We shall do ery well by-and-by.” Then he id down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be ery careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Haing gien so further dires, and ihat he should call again the day, he departed; to grief: I fe so sheered and befriended while he sat in the chair near  illow; and as he closed the door after hi all the roodarkened and heart again sank: inepressible sadness ghed it down.
“Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?” asked Bessie, rather softly.
Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the sente be rough. “I will try.”
“Would you like to drink, ould you eat anything?”
“No, thank you, Bessie.”
“Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twele o’clock; but you y call if you want anything in the night.”
Wonderful ciility this! It eoldened to ask a question.
“Bessie, what is the tter with ? AI ill?”
“You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-roowith g; you’ll be better soon, no doubt.”
Bessie went into the houseid’s apartnt, which was near. I heard her say—
“Sarah, e and sleep with in the nursery; I daren’t for life be aloh that poor child to-night: she ght die; it’s such a strahing she should hae that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard.”
Sarah ca back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their ersation, frowhich I was able only too distinctly to ihe in subject discussed.
“Sothing passed her, all dressed in white, and anished”—“A great bck dog behind hi—“Three loud raps on the chaer door”—“A light in the churchyard just oer his grae,” c. c.
At st both slept: the fire and the dle went out. For , the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread: such dread as children only feel.
No seere or prolonged bodily illness followed this i of the red-roo it only gae neres a shock of which I feel the reerberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe so fearful pangs of ntal suffering, but I ought tie you, for you knew not what you did: while rending heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting bad propensities.
day, by noon, I and dressed, and sat ed in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I fe physically weak and broken down: but worse ailnt was an unutterable wretess of nd: a wretess which kept drawing fro silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one sa drop fro cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to hae been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all go in the carriage with their . Abbot, too, was sewing in another roo and Bessie, as she ed hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to eery now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should hae been to a paradise of peace, acedh I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficu it was to fra any answer! Children feel, but they ot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to epress the resu of the process in words. Fearful, howeer, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieing grief by iarting it, I, after a disturbed pause, tried to fra a agre, though, as far as it went, true response.
“For ohing, I hae no father or ther, brothers or sisters.”
“You hae a kind aunt anusins.”
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced—
“But John Reed knocked down, and aunt shut up in the red- roo”
Mr. Lloyd a sed ti produced his snuff-bo.
“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a ery beautiful house?” asked he. “Are you hankful to hae such a fine pce to lie at?”
“It is not house, sir; and Abbot says I hae less right to be here than a serant.”
“Pooh! you ’t be silly enough to wish to leae such a splendid pce?”
“If I had anywhere else to go, I should be gd to leae it; but I eer get away froGateshead till I aa won.”
“Perhaps you y—who knows? Hae you aions besides Mrs. Reed?”
“I think not, sir.”
“None belonging to your father?”
“I don’t know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I ght hae so poor, low retions called Eyre, but she knew nothing about the”
“If you had such, would you like to go to the”
I reflected. Poerty looks grito grown people; still re so to children: they hae not ch idea of industrious, w, respectable poerty; they think of the word only as ected with ragged clothes, sty food, fireless grates, rude nners, and debasing ices: poerty for was synonyus with degradation.
“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was reply.
“Not een if they were kind to you?”
I shook head: uld not see how poor people had the ans of being kind; and then to learn to speak like the to adopt their nners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor won I saw sotis nursing their children or washing their clothes at thttage doors of the ilge of Gateshead: no, I was not heroiough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
“But are your reties so ery poor? Are they w people?”
“I ot tell; Aunt. Reed says if I hae any, they st be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging.”
“Would you like to go to school?”
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sotis spoke of it as a pce where young dies sat iocks, wore backboards, and were epected to be eceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his ster; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for ne, and if Bessie’s ats of school-discipline (gathered frothe young dies of a faly where she had lied before ing to Gateshead) were sopalling, her details of certain aplishnts attained by these sa young dies were, I thought, equally attractie. She boasted of beautiful paintings of ndscapes and flowers by theeecuted; of songs theuld sing and pieces theuld py, of purses theuld , of French books theuld traill spirit was ed to etion as I listened. Besides, school would be a plete ge: it ilied a long journey, aire separatiateshead, arao a new life.
“I should indeed like to go to school,” was the audible clusion of sings.
“Well, well! who knows what y happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. “The child ought to hae ge of air and se,” he added, speaking to hielf; “neres not in a good state.”
Bessie now returned; at the sa nt the carriage was heard rolling up the grael-walk.
“Is that your stress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd. “I should like to speak to her before I go.”
Bessie inited hito walk into the breakfast-roo ahe way out. Ieriew which followed between hiand Mrs. Reed, I presu, froafter-ourrehat the apothecary eo reend beio school; and the reendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, “Missis was, she dared say, gd enough to get rid of such a tireso, ill- ditioned child, who always looked as if she were watg eerybody, and sg plots underhand.” Abbot, I think, gae credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.
On that sa oasion I learned, for the first ti, froMiss Abbot’s unications to Bessie, that father had been a poor clergyn; that ther had rried hiagainst the wishes of her friends, who sidered the tch beh her; that grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after ther and father had been r;big;/bigried a year, the tter caught the typhus feer while isiting ang the poor of a rge nufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prealent: that ther took the iion frohi and both died within a nth of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narratie, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot.”
“Yes,” responded Abbot; “if she were a nice, pretty child, o passionate her forlornness; but one really ot care for such a little toad as that.”
“Not a great deal, to be sure,” agreed Bessie: “at any rate, a beauty like Miss Geiana would be re ing in the sa dition.”
“Yes, I doat on Miss Geiana!” cried the ferent Abbot. “Little darling!—with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweelour as she has; just as if she were painted!—Bessie, uld fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper.”
“Suld I—with a roast onion. e, we’ll go down.” They went.
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