As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me;
I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed;
it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah,
drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which
nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within,
delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking. My
reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly
yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to
an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the
future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like
garden, and then up at the house--a large building, half of which seemed
grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the
schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows,
which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore
this inscription:--
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"Lowood Institution.--This portion was rebuilt A.D. ---, by Naomi
Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county." "Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your
Father which is in heaven."--St. Matt. v. 16.
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