My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the goldeher; it prised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwoasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.
During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insuffit to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes aed there: loved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distrag irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the m. Then the sty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely suffit to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficy of nourishmeed an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whehe famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or mehe little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the preorsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the tents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an apa of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the m service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of eat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served rouween the services.
At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
I remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encing us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, 「like stalwart soldiers.」 The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
How we longed for the light a of a blazing fire whe back! But, to the little o least, this was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, ing their starved arms in their pinafores.
A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally trived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
The Sunday evening ent iing, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, ah chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances