Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin Read Free Book Online

Bible?"
    "Sometimes."
    "With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"
    "I like Revelation, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."
    "And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"
    "No, sir."
    "No? Oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six psalms by heart, and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread nut to eat or a verse of a psalm to learn, he says, 'Oh! The verse of a psalm! Angels sing psalms,' says he. 'I wish to be a little angel here below.' He then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
    "Psalms are not interesting," I said. Most especially not for a meager two nuts.
    "That proves you have a wicked heart and you must pray to God to change it, to give you a new and clean one, to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
    I was about to ask how that change of heart was to be performed. Did he act as God's intermediary? Did he mean to perform an operation to change my heart? I was, after all, a girl of ten and prone to flights of imagination. I could picture him reaching in and pulling
    35
    my heart out, still beating. But Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down. Perhaps I had said enough.
    "Mr. Bokorhurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish. Should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency towards deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Bokorhurst."
    Her words were perhaps intended as a warning to keep me quiet, but she did not scare me. The problem was that Mr. Bokorhurst would take her word over mine, and she was right that I should not attempt to expose her, for now. She had already made me out to be a bad child and a liar, and I would have a struggle to overcome the reputation she painted for me even as I started fresh in a school.
    "Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Bokorhurst. "It is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. She shall be watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."
    "I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects," continued my benefactress. "To be made useful, to be kept humble. As for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood."
    "Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Bokorhurst. "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood. Only the other day I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed, 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little pockets outside their frocks--they are almost like poor people's children! And,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and Mama's as if they had never seen a silk gown before.' "
    36
    "This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed. "Had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Slayre. Consistency, my dear Mr. Bokorhurst. I advocate consistency in all things."
    "Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties, and it has been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood."
    "I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Bokorhurst. I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was becoming too irksome."
    "No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Bokorhurst Hall in the course of a week or two. I shall send Miss Temple notice