 side of the hearth, and herself taking another,
she called me to her side.
    »Is it all over?« she asked, looking down at my face. »Have you cried your
grief away?«
    »I am afraid I never shall do that.«
    »Why?«
    »Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else
will now think me wicked.«
    »We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act
as a good girl, and you will satisfy me.«
    »Shall I, Miss Temple?«
    »You will,« said she passing her arm round me. »And now tell me who is the
lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?«
    »Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her care.«
    »Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?«
    »No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have often
heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died, that she would always
keep me.«
    »Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a criminal
is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. You have been
charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as you can. Say whatever
your memory suggests as true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing.«
    I resolved in the depth of my heart that I would be most moderate: most
correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange coherently what
I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by
emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed
that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of
resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than
ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I
went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
    In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me
after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room;
in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for
nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my
heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication
