Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 1.djvu/297

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
JANE EYRE.
289

found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.—eh?"

"No—Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her, and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir,—I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed; and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character,