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 plexion; 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 bon 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