Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.

“Is it still ’Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her.

“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.”

And in five minutes more she shut it up.  I was glad of this.  “Now,” thought I, “I can perhaps get her to talk.”  I sat down by her on the floor.

“What is your name besides Burns?”

“Helen.”

“Do you come a long way from here?”

“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.”

“Will you ever go back?”

“I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.”

“You must wish to leave Lowood?”

“No! why should I?  I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.”

“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?”

“Cruel?  Not at all!  She is severe:  she dislikes my faults.”

“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her.  If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.”

“Probably you would do nothing of the sort:  but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations.  It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”

“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl:  I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.”

“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it:  it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”

I heard her with wonder:  I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser.  Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes.  I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.

“You say you have faults, Helen:  what are they?  To me you seem very good.”

“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances:  I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things, in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements.  This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular.”