'Go and tell him, Jane.'
'Mr. Byass, Mrs. Byass is crying,' whispered Jane at the
parlour-door. 'Don't you think you'd better, go downstairs?'
Hearing a movement, she ran to be out of the way. Samuel left the
dark room, and with slow step descended to the kitchen. Then Jane
knew that it was all right, and tripped up to her room humming a
song of contentment.
Had she, then, wholly outgrown the bitter experiences of her
childhood? Had the cruelty which tortured her during the years when
the soul is being fashioned left upon her no brand of slavish vice,
nor the baseness of those early associations affected her with any
irremovable taint? As far as human observation could probe her, Jane
Snowdon had no spot of uncleanness in her being; she had been
rescued while it was yet time, and the subsequent period of
fostering had enabled features of her character, which no one could
have discerned in the helpless child, to expand with singular
richness. Two effects of the time of her bondage were, however,
clearly to be distinguished. Though nature had endowed her with a
good intelligence, she could only with extreme labour acquire that
elementary book-knowledge which vulgar children get easily enough;
it seemed as if the bodily overstrain at a critical period of life
had affected her memory, and her power of mental application
generally.
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