–60 REFER TO THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT. READ THE PASSAGECAREFU...
Questions 52–60
refer to the following excerpt. Read the passage
carefully and then answer the questions.
From
Jane Eyre
Line
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wan-
dering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but
since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the
cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so somber and a rain so
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penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly after-
noons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, sad-
dened by chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the conscious-
ness of my physical inferiority to Liza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
10
Then said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round
their mamma in the drawing room: she lay reclined on the sofa by
the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither
quarreling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed
from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the
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necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from
Bessie and could discover by her own observation that I was endeav-
oring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike
disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something
lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me
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from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked.
“Jane, I don’t like cavilers or questioners; besides, there is some-
thing truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be
seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”
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A small breakfast room adjoined the drawing room. I slipped in
there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume,
taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into
the window seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged like a Turk;
and having drawn the red moreen* curtain nearly closed, I was
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shrined in double retirement.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to
the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating