Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 1.djvu/50

42 suddenly and without at all deliberating on my words,

"They are not fit to associate with me."

Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman, but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.

"What would Uncle Reed say to you if he were alive?" was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.

"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold, composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.

"My uncle Reed is in heaven and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead."

Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and