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 in'epressi-ble yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these perform-ances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen oflittle girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out ofthe third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. Theremedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom,and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimestheir feet failed 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 first monthafter my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdea-con: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my ownreasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at 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 long division, myeyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure justpassing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when,two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, itwas not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrancethey thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presentlybeside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black col-umn which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gates-head. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I wasright: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and lookinglonger, narrower, and more rigid than ever.
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well Iremembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposi-tion, etc. ; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise MissTemple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had beendreading the fulfilment of this promise,--I had been looking out daily forthe"Coming Man, "whose information respecting my past life and conver-sation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there 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 I watchedher eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orbturn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and asI happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most ofwhat he said: its import relieved me from immediate 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 calico chemises, andI sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot tomake a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have somepapers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give outmore than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt tobe careless and lose them. And, 0 ma'am! ! wish the woollen stockingswere better looked to] --when I was here last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantityof black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes inthem I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time. "
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