CHAPTER XXIX 428
On a chair by the bedside were all my own things , clean and dry . My black silk frock hung against the wall . The traces of the bog were removed from it ; the creases left by the wet smoothed out : it was quite decent . My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable . There were the means of washing in the room , and a comb and brush to smooth my hair . After a weary process , and resting every five minutes , I succeeded in dressing myself . My clothes hung loose on me ; for I was much wasted , but I covered deficiencies with a shawl , and once more , clean and respectable looking -- no speck of the dirt , no trace of the disorder I so hated , and which seemed so to degrade me , left -- I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters , to a narrow low passage , and found my way presently to the kitchen .
It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous fire . Hannah was baking . Prejudices , it is well known , are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education : they grow there , firm as weeds among stones . Hannah had been cold and stiff , indeed , at the first : latterly she had begun to relent a little ; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed , she even smiled .
" What , you have got up !" she said . " You are better , then . You may sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone , if you will ."
She pointed to the rocking-chair : I took it . She bustled about , examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye . Turning to me , as she took some loaves from the oven , she asked bluntly -
" Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here ?"
I was indignant for a moment ; but remembering that anger was out of the question , and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her , I answered quietly , but still not without a certain marked firmness -
" You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar . I am no beggar ; any more than yourself or your young ladies ."