“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.”

“And you can work on muslin and canvas?”

“I can.”

“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane!  I knew you would be:  you will get on whether your relations notice you or not.  There was something I wanted to ask you.  Have you ever heard anything from your father’s kinsfolk, the Eyres?”

“Never in my life.”

“Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable:  and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were it school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay:  he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two.  He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father’s brother.”

“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?”

“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine —­ the butler did tell me —­ "

“Madeira?” I suggested.

“Yes, that is it —­ that is the very word.”

“So he went?”

“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house:  Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’  My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant.”

“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant.”

Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me:  I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach.  We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there:  each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.

CHAPTER XI

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe.  All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day:  I left Lowton at four o’clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.