Jane Eyre

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, inthe leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when therewas no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds sosombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of thequestion.I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to mewas the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heartsaddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of myphysical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in thedrawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her(for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she haddispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity ofkeeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover byher own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a moresociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner–somethinglighter, franker, more natural, as it were–she really must exclude me from privilegesintended only for contented, happy, little children.”