Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/37

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AGNES GREY.
29

ing," continued she, "but she is a a very good girl upon the whole: though I wish her to be kept out of the nursery, as much as possible, as she is now almost six years old, and might acquire bad habits from the nurses. I have ordered her crib to be placed in your room and if you will be so kind, as to overlook her washing and dressing, and take charge of her clothes, she need have nothing further to do with the nursery-maid."

I replied I was quite willing to do so; and at that moment, my young pupils entered the apartment with their two younger sisters. Master Tom Bloomfield was a well-grown boy of seven, with a somewhat wiry frame, flaxen hair, blue eyes, small turned up nose, and fair complexion. Mary Ann was a tall girl too, somewhat dark like her mother, but with a round full face, and a high colour in her cheeks. The second sister was Fanny, a very pretty little girl; Mrs. Bloomfield assured me she was a remarkably gentle child, and required encouragement: she had not learnt anything yet; but in a few days, she would be four years old, and then she might take her first lesson in the alphabet, and be promoted to the school-room. The remaining one was