ood know what you are, and what
you have done."

"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for
their faults."

"Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.

"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the
nursery--there's a dear--and lie down a little."

"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs.
Reed, for I hate to live here."

"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed _sotto voce_;
and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.

I was left there alone--winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I
had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the
rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's
solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce
pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my
pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot
give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without
experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A
ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a
meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same
ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have
represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour's
silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the
dreariness of my hated and hating position.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine
it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and
corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly
would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I knew, partly
from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her
repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse
of my nature.

I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking;
fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre
indignation. I took a book--some Arabian tales; I sat down and
endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own
thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found
fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the
shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or
breeze, thr