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第3部分

case window; and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone; and then my courage sank。 My habitual mood of humiliation; self…doubt; forlorn depression; fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire。 All said I was wicked; and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr。 Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea; I dwelt on it with gathering dread。 I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle—my mother’s brother—that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs。 Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children。 Mrs。 Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had; I dare say; as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race; and unconnected with her; after her husband’s death; by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard…wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love; and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group。

A singular notion dawned upon me。 I doubted not—never doubted— that if Mr。 Reed had been alive he would have treated me kind