CHAPTER III 28
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced-
" But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the redroom."
Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.
" Don ' t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. " Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"
" It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."
" Pooh! you can ' t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"
" If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."
" Perhaps you may-- who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"
" I think not, sir." " None belonging to your father?"
" I don ' t know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them."
" If you had such, would you like to go to them?"
I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.