“You sent for me,” I said, “and I am here; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on.”

“Oh, of course!  You have seen my daughters?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind:  to-night it is too late, and I have a difficulty in recalling them.  But there was something I wished to say —­ let me see —­ "

The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame.  Turning restlessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down:  she was at once irritated.

“Sit up!” said she; “don’t annoy me with holding the clothes fast.  Are you Jane Eyre?”

“I am Jane Eyre.”

“I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe.  Such a burden to be left on my hands —­ and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one’s movements!  I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend —­ no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house.  What did they do with her at Lowood?  The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died.  She, however, did not die:  but I said she did —­ I wish she had died!”

“A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?”

“I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband’s only sister, and a great favourite with him:  he opposed the family’s disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton.  He would send for the baby; though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance.  I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it —­ a sickly, whining, pining thing!  It would wail in its cradle all night long —­ not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning.  Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own:  more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age.  He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar:  the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike.  In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature.  I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse:  but he was weak, naturally weak.  John does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it:  John is like me and like my brothers —­ he is quite a Gibson.  Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money?  I have no more money to give him:  we are getting poor.  I must send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it off.  I can never submit to do that —­ yet how are we to get on?  Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages.  John gambles dreadfully, and always loses —­ poor boy!  He is beset by sharpers:  John is sunk and degraded —­ his look is frightful —­ I feel ashamed for him when I see him.”