CHAPTER X 113
" And you don ' t live at Gateshead?"
" I live at the lodge: the old porter has left."
" Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
" You ' re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout," continued Mrs. Leaven. " I dare say they ' ve not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth."
" Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?"
" Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and-- what do you think?-- he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always quarrelling-- "
" Well, and what of John Reed?"
" Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got-- plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think."
" What does he look like?"
" He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips."
" And Mrs. Reed?"