'FagmentWelcome to consult...ctine Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 80 of enduance; and still less could I undestand o sympathise with the fobeaance she expessed fo he chastise. Still I felt that Helen Buns consideed things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be ight and I wong; but I would not ponde the matte deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a moe convenient season. “You say you have faults, Helen: what ae they? To me you seem vey good.” “Then lean fom me, not to judge by appeaances: I am, as Miss Scatched said, slattenly; I seldom put, and neve keep, things, in ode; I am caeless; I foget ules; I ead when I should lean my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bea to be subjected to systematic aangements. This is all vey povoking to Miss Scatched, who is natually neat, punctual, and paticula.” “And coss and cuel,” I added; but Helen Buns would not admit my addition: she kept silence. “Is Miss Temple as sevee to you as Miss Scatched?” At the utteance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted ove he gave face. “Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains he to be sevee to any one, even the wost in the school: she sees my eos, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything wothy of paise, she gives me my meed libeally. One stong poof of my wetchedly defective natue is, that even he expostulations, so mild, so ational, have not influence to cue me of my faults; and even he paise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued cae and foesight.” “That is cuious,” said I, “it is so easy to be caeful.” Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 81 “Fo you I have no doubt it is. I obseved you in you class this moning, and saw you wee closely attentive: you thoughts neve seemed to wande while Miss Mille explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually ove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatched, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the vey sound of he voice; I fall into a sot of deam. Sometimes I think I am in Nothumbeland, and that the noises I hea ound me ae the bubbling of a little book which uns though Deepden, nea ou house;—then, when it comes to my tun to eply, I have to be awakened; and having head nothing of what was ead fo listening to the visionay book, I have no answe eady.” “Yet how well you eplied this aftenoon.” “It was mee chance; the subject on which we had been eading had inteested me. This aftenoon, instead of deaming of Deepden, I was wondeing how a man who wished to do ight could act so unjustly and unwisely as Chales the Fist sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integity and conscientiousness, he could see no fathe than the peogatives of the cown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spiit of the age was tending! Still, I like Chales—I espect him—I pity him, poo mudeed king! Yes, his enemies wee the wost: they shed blood they had no ight to shed. How daed they kill him!” Helen was talking to heself now: she had fogotten I could not vey well undestand he—that I was ignoant, o nealy so, of the subject she discussed. I ecalled he to my level. “And when Miss Temple teaches you, do you thoughts wande then?” Chalotte Bont. ElecBook Classics fJane Eye 82 “No, cetainly, not often; because Miss Temple has geneally something to say which is newe than my own eflections; he language is singulaly ageeable to me, and the infomation she communicates is
