正文预览

第2章 约战

　　The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned intodusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed fromGateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; greatgrey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, wedescended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night hadoverclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.

eturn, with a degree ofattachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.

　　'You naughty little thing!' she said. 'Why don't you come whenyou are called?'

　　The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered roundtheir mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by thefireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neitherquarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she haddispensed from joining the group; saying, 'She regretted to be underthe necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heardfrom Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I wasendeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable andchildlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were- she reallymust exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,little children.'

　　'My mother is dead.'

　　'Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendidplace?'

　　The wild wind whirls away.'

　　'Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?'

　　Then Mrs. Reed subjoined-