Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 1.djvu/297

Rh found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.—eh?"

"No—Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her, and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir,—I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"

"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens."

But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed; and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character,