CHAPTER IV 35
so pleasant and amiable , and never push me about , or scold , or task me unreasonably , as she was too often wont to do . Bessie Lee must , I think , have been a girl of good natural capacity , for she was smart in all she did , and had a remarkable knack of narrative ; so , at least , I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales . She was pretty too , if my recollections of her face and person are correct . I remember her as a slim young woman , with black hair , dark eyes , very nice features , and good , clear complexion ; but she had a capricious and hasty temper , and indifferent ideas of principle or justice : still , such as she was , I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall .
It was the fifteenth of January , about nine o ' clock in the morning : Bessie was gone down to breakfast ; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama ; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry , an occupation of which she was fond : and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained . She had a turn for traffic , and a marked propensity for saving ; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens , but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots , seeds , and slips of plants ; that functionary having orders from Mrs . Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell : and Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby . As to her money , she first secreted it in odd corners , wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper ; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid , Eliza , fearful of one day losing her valued treasure , consented to intrust it to her mother , at a usurious rate of interest -- fifty or sixty per cent .; which interest she exacted every quarter , keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy .
Georgiana sat on a high stool , dressing her hair at the glass , and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers , of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic . I was making my bed , having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned ( for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under-nurserymaid , to tidy the room , dust the chairs , & c .). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress , I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books