Chapter 4

From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd and from the above reported conference between Bessie

and Abbott, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well.

A change seemed near, I desired, and waited it in silence.

It terried, however, days and weeks passed.

I had regained my normal state of health, but no new illusion was made to the subject

over which I brooded.

Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me.

Since my illness she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and

her own children, appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take

my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly

in the drawing-room.

Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school?

Still, I felt an instinctive certainty that you would not long endure me under the same

roof with her, for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable

and rooted aversion.

Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible.

Georg thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement.

But as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep iron and desperate

revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran for

me tittering executions, and vowing I had burst his nose.

I had indeed leveled that that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict,

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