My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden ageeither; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties inhabituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear offailure in these points harassed me worse than the physicalhardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.

During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and,after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented ourstirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but withinthese limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Ourclothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: wehad no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: ourungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as wereour feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured fromthis cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture ofthrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in themorning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with thekeen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient tokeep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishmentresulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils:whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they wouldcoax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time Ihave shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown breaddistributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half thecontents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with anaccompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency ofhunger.

Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk twomiles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We setout cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning servicewe became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, andan allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penuriousproportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round betweenthe services.

At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed andhilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range ofsnowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.

I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along ourdrooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered,gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept andexample, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said,"like stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor things, weregenerally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task ofcheering others.

How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we gotback! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: eachhearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double rowof great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched ingroups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.

A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration ofbread--a whole, instead of a half, slice--with the deliciousaddition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat towhich we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generallycontrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself;but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the ChurchCatechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St.Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller,whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequentinterlude of these performances was the enactment of the part ofEutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered withsleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off thefourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrustthem forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them tostand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feetfailed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were thenpropped up with the monitors' high stools.

I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeedthat gentleman was from home during the greater part of the firstmonth after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friendthe archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not saythat I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he didat last.

One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I wassitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in longdivision, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sightof a figure just passing: I recognised almost instinctively thatgaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachersincluded, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up inorder to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stridemeasured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, whoherself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned onme so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glancedsideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it wasMr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer,narrower, and more rigid than ever.

I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too wellI remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about mydisposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to appriseMiss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I hadbeen dreading the fulfilment of this promise,--I had been lookingout daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting my pastlife and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: nowthere he was.

He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: Idid not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and Iwatched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to seeits dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. Ilistened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of theroom, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me fromimmediate apprehension.

"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; itstruck me that it would be just of the quality for the calicochemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell MissSmith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, butshe shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on anyaccount, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if theyhave more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma'am!I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!--when I was herelast, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes dryingon the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad stateof repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they hadnot been well mended from time to time."

He paused.

"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple.

"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of thegirls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the ruleslimit them to one."

"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and CatherineJohnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton lastThursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for theoccasion."

Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.

"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstanceoccur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; Ifind, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch,consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to thegirls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over theregulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Whointroduced this innovation? and by what authority?"

"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied MissTemple: "the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils couldnot possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fastingtill dinner-time."

"Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringingup these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury andindulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Shouldany little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such asthe spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish,the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with somethingmore delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body andobviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved tothe spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them toevince fortitude under temporary privation. A brief address onthose occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judiciousinstructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferingsof the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to theexhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciplesto take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that manshall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth outof the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, "If ye sufferhunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye." Oh, madam, when youput bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into thesechildren's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but youlittle think how you starve their immortal souls!"

Mr. Brocklehurst again paused--perhaps overcome by his feelings.Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; butshe now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale asmarble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of thatmaterial; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have requireda sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually intopetrified severity.

Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his handsbehind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenlyhis eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzledor shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than hehad hitherto used -

"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--WHAT is that girl with curled hair?Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?" And extending his canehe pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.

"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.

"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair?Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, doesshe conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical,charitable establishment--as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"

"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still morequietly.

"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish thesegirls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I haveagain and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arrangedclosely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must becut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see otherswho have far too much of the excrescence--that tall girl, tell herto turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct theirfaces to the wall."

Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smoothaway the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order,however, and when the first class could take in what was required ofthem, they obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could seethe looks and grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre:it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he wouldperhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of thecup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference thanhe imagined.

He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom -

"All those top-knots must be cut off."

Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.

"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is notof this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts ofthe flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facednessand sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each ofthe young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaitswhich vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cutoff; think of the time wasted, of--"

Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors,ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a littlesooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidlyattired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio(fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then infashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of thisgraceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaboratelycurled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl,trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.

These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. andthe Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the topof the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with theirreverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny ofthe room upstairs, while he transacted business with thehousekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured thesuperintendent. They now proceeded to address divers remarks andreproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linenand the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no time to listento what they said; other matters called off and enchanted myattention.

Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst andMiss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions tosecure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if Icould only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back onthe form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held myslate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escapednotice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip frommy hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn everyeye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pickup the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.It came.

"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after--"Itis the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw breath, "Imust not forget I have a word to say respecting her." Then aloud:how loud it seemed to me! "Let the child who broke her slate comeforward!"

Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but thetwo great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs andpushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gentlyassisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel -

"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not bepunished."

The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.

"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thoughtI; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co.bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.

"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very highone from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.

"Place the child upon it."

And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no conditionto note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up tothe height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard ofme, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and acloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.

Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.

"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers,and children, you all see this girl?"

Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.

"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinaryform of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that Hehas given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as amarked character. Who would think that the Evil One had alreadyfound a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is thecase."

A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and tofeel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer tobe shirked, must be firmly sustained.

"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty towarn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is alittle castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently aninterloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; youmust shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude herfrom your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers,you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well herwords, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul:if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters whileI tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land,worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma andkneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"

Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time inperfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehurstsproduce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the twoyounger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.

"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitablelady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her owndaughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girlrepaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last herexcellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own youngones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate theirpurity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of oldsent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers,superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnateround her."

With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the topbutton of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose,bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in statefrom the room. Turning at the door, my judge said -

"Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no onespeak to her during the remainder of the day."

There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bearthe shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room,was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What mysensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose,stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up andpassed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange lightinspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sentthrough me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr,a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in thetransit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, andtook a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slightquestion about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for thetriviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at meas she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I knowthat it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it litup her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like areflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment HelenBurns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I hadheard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and wateron the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out.Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on thedisc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can onlysee those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness ofthe orb.