"And you came from--?"

     "From Lowood school, in ---shire."

     "Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"

     "Eight years."

     "Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"

     "I have none."

     "Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"

     "No."