From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage-road,
and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling
the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a
carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with
indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought
visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the
door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being
nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the
spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs
of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement.
The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and
having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out
the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the
nursery.
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"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you
washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug before I
answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash
yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the
cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied--
"No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."
"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite
red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you opening the
window for?"
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